Dynamic response of wind turbine blade surface material under water droplet high velocity impact

Abstract

When a wind turbine blade exposure to some degree of rainfall, water droplets in the atmosphere impact the blade at high velocity will causes erosion damages of the leading edge. The damages have significant influence to the aerodynamic performance of the blade, and also the cost of power generation. In this paper, a high velocity impact dynamics model of water droplet impact on wind turbine blade is develops based on SPH-FEM coupling method, where SPH model is used to model the large deformation region of the fluid domain, and FEM method is used to model the small deformation region of the structure domain. Together with properties of gelcoat material on the blade surface, effects of varying impact velocities and angles on the impact response of the gelcoat material are analysed through numerical simulation. The results show that during a high velocity impact event of water droplet, the contact force history appears two peaks. Also contact forces and strains on the blade material decreases with decreasing droplet impact velocity and impact angle, the total contact duration of the droplet during the impact decreases with increasing droplet impact velocity and angle. The present study is expected to provide theoretical guidance for enhancing the erosive capacity of wind turbine blade gelcoat material.