Wind Turbine Blade Coating Fatigue Induced by Raindrop Impact

Abstract

With the increase of wind energy production demand, the need to manufacture larger wind turbine blades is on the rise. Because of the high tip speed of the large blade, the blade could be impacted by high-speed objects such as raindrops. This research focuses on developing a computational model for analyzing wind turbine blade coating fatigue induced by raindrop impact. A stochastic rain texture model is used to simulate a realistic rain event determined by a rain intensity and a rain duration. A smoothed particle hydrodynamic approach is implemented to calculate the impact stress considering a single raindrop. A stress interpolation method is proposed to accurately and efficiently estimate the impact of stress under a random rain event. Besides, a crack growth law is used to explain the process of coating shedding. Through a method for calculating crack growth length based on stress, this paper analyzes crack growth life as a function of the rain intensity and the rain duration. This function, together with the statistics of rainfall history, provides a new approach for estimating the expected fatigue life of the blade coating.