Practical Considerations on Wind Turbine Blade Leading Edge Erosion Modelling and its Impact on Performance and Loads

Abstract

Abstract Wind turbines operate in all sorts of weather conditions around the globe, exploiting installation sites with high power production potential. These machines operate within the atmospheric boundary layer and are therefore subject to impacts with rain, hail dust particles and insects, often leading to rapid blade deterioration and performance drops. This wok aims to explore different ways of modelling wind turbine blade leading edge erosion with a medium-fidelity approach and to show how different models impact performance and loads. This provides a quick way of evaluating the effects of blade deterioration. A 2D airfoil erosion model is developed and lift and drag coefficients are calculated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). An aero-servo-elastic model of the DTU 10MW Reference Wind Turbine (RWT) is then used to evaluate the impacts of the models on performance. Differences in airfoil performance are discussed as well as differences in the turbine’s power coefficient and fatigue loading levels.