DTU Wind Energy will gather 100 international experts at the beginning of 2020 to discuss the development of new solutions for leading edge erosion.
Offshore wind turbines are often exposed to severe weather such as rain and hail. This is expensive for wind energy producers, because the surface of wind turbine blades become damaged, and the efficiency of the energy generation can be reduced. This entails huge costs. To solve the problem, DTU Wind Energy organises an international symposium on Leading Edge Erosion of Wind Turbine Blades at the beginning of the year. Around 100 experts will gather at DTU's campus at Risø to present and discuss new solutions to the challenge of leading edge erosion. The participants come from universities and industry and from a number of European countries, as well as USA, China, Mexico, Canada and Japan. The topics are going to be meteorology, aerodynamics, coating and other kinds of protection of wind turbine blades, among others.
The symposium is organised by Senior Researcher Leon Mishnaevsky Jr. and Professor Charlotte Bay Hasager – both from DTU Wind Energy and leaders of two research consortia, Duraledge and Erosion. The projects are funded by Innovation Fund Denmark, and together the leaders seek to provide a complete solution to control the problem.
The Erosion project: How to avoid erosion
In the Erosion project researchers from DTU Wind Energy are cooperating with the industry to investigate the effect of rain and wind on wind turbine blades. The goal is, among others, to be able to develop an erosion safe mode operation for when it will be worthwhile to reduce the speed of the wind turbines, because the lower speed reduces the erosion of the blades.
"In weathers like rain and hail the savings in slowing down the speed of the wind turbines are 3%, and these are huge sums when we talk about wind farms," says Charlotte Bay Hasager and continues: "During a year, one day at a lower speed can extend the life of a wind turbine between 3 to 25 years”.
The Duraledge project works to protect blades
While the Erosion project focuses on developing intelligent control strategies for wind turbines, the project Duraledge's focal point is developing more durable wind turbine coating materials. In cooperation with a consortium of leading wind turbine blade manufacturers and material manufacturers, Leon Mishnaevsky and colleagues from DTU are working to understand the mechanisms of degradation of wind turbine blades and to extend their lives by developing durable coatings for the blades.
“Using numerical simulation of degradation of materials at microscale level, supported by advanced microscopy analysis of the materials, one can get the full understanding of the erosion mechanisms”, says Leon Mishnaevsky. “This will lead to the computational design of new protective coatings, preventing the blade surface degradation even at high rotation speed”.
Leon Mishnaevsky and Charlotte Bay Hasager agree that the results from both projects represent the two complementary strategies for solving the problem of leading edge erosion. “In order to prevent the leading edge erosion, a combination of intelligent control strategies and better materials is required. DTU Wind Energy is working on new solutions of wind turbine blade protection, integrating these strategies”, Charlotte Bay Hasager and Leon Mishnaevsky state.
International interest in erosion
In continuation of the symposium IEA Wind’s Task 11 will have their first meeting on erosion of wind turbine blades, which, like the symposium, is going to take place at DTU's campus at Risø. Thus, the international interest in research into wind turbine erosion is broad and obvious.
Charlotte Bay Hasager summarizes her points on the work in the field of the influence of rain and wind on erosion of wind turbine blades: "In research and the production of wind energy, we need an improved control of the rain-wind climate and the arguments for prioritising research in this particular area are really good."