TY - GEN

T1 - Approaches for droplet impingement computation

T2 - International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Task 46, Work-package 3: Wind turbine operation with erosion

AU - Castorrini, Alessio

AU - Campobasso, Sergio

PY - 2025/3/31

Y1 - 2025/3/31

N2 - The report summarizes high-fidelity computational approaches for determining the characteristics of the rain droplet impacts on wind turbine blades, an information paramount to blade leading edge erosion assessments. The methods, developed at Sapienza University of Rome, have been widely used for wind turbine erosion analysis, recently also in joint research programmes with Lancaster University. All methods summarized herein consider the blade geometry, the turbine controls and the site-specific wind and rain characteristics in the discussed multi-disciplinary erosion analysis framework. The methods can also account for the effect of the nonuniform aerodynamic field past the blades on the trajectories of the impinging rain droplet. Consideration of this physical aspect in the leading edge erosion analysis has been shown to result in an increase of about 10 percent on the leading edge coating durability with respect to the case in which the effect of blade aerodynamics on the droplet trajectories is ignored. More importantly, however, the more realistic erosion analyses that consider the aforementioned aerodynamic effects leads to a more accurate prediction of leading edge erosion topographies, which are paramount to accurately determine the blade performance loss and the associated turbine power and energy reductions due to leading edge erosion.

AB - The report summarizes high-fidelity computational approaches for determining the characteristics of the rain droplet impacts on wind turbine blades, an information paramount to blade leading edge erosion assessments. The methods, developed at Sapienza University of Rome, have been widely used for wind turbine erosion analysis, recently also in joint research programmes with Lancaster University. All methods summarized herein consider the blade geometry, the turbine controls and the site-specific wind and rain characteristics in the discussed multi-disciplinary erosion analysis framework. The methods can also account for the effect of the nonuniform aerodynamic field past the blades on the trajectories of the impinging rain droplet. Consideration of this physical aspect in the leading edge erosion analysis has been shown to result in an increase of about 10 percent on the leading edge coating durability with respect to the case in which the effect of blade aerodynamics on the droplet trajectories is ignored. More importantly, however, the more realistic erosion analyses that consider the aforementioned aerodynamic effects leads to a more accurate prediction of leading edge erosion topographies, which are paramount to accurately determine the blade performance loss and the associated turbine power and energy reductions due to leading edge erosion.

KW - rain erosion

KW - particle-laden flows

KW - Wind turbines

KW - material fatigue

KW - computational fluid dynamics

KW - applied meteorology

M3 - Technical Report

JO - International Energy Agency Wind Division

JF - International Energy Agency Wind Division

PB - IEA Wind

ER -