Publication Date:
2018-02-21
Description:
Impact fatigue caused by collision with rain droplets, hail stones and other airborne particles, also known as rain erosion, is a severe problem for wind turbine blades. Each impact on the leading edge adds an increment to the accumulated damage in the material. After a number of impacts the leading edge material will crack. This paper presents and supports the hypothesis that the vast majority of the damage accumulated in the leading edge is imposed at extreme precipitation condition events, which occur during a very small fraction of the turbines operation life. By reducing the tip speed of the blades during these events, the service life of the leading edges significantly increases from a few years to the full expected lifetime of the wind turbine. In the worst case at the cost of a negligible reduction of annual energy production (AEP) and in the best case with a significant increase in AEP.
Electronic ISSN:
2366-7621
Topics:
Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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