TY - GEN
T1 - Computational fluid dynamics methodology for characterisation of leading edge erosion in whirling arm test rigs
AU - Herring, Robbie
AU - Dyer, Kirsten
AU - MacLeod, Alasdair
AU - Ward, Carwyn
PY - 2019/5/21
Y1 - 2019/5/21
N2 - Blade leading edge erosion has developed into a significant issue for the offshore wind industry. Protection solutions, including polymer coatings and tapes, are often applied to increase the blade lifetime. Experimental evaluation of protection systems is typically conducted in whirling arm rain erosion test rigs. Currently, there is no thoroughly validated method to relate the test results to real-world erosion performance. Furthermore, the design of rigs is not sufficiently limited to enable comparison of results between different rigs. Industry guideline, DNV-GL-RP-0171, provides a comparison method to address this issue. This paper describes the development of a droplet particle tracking Computational Fluid Dynamics methodology for rain erosion test rigs, which models the impact strike characteristics of a droplet, the number of impacts and the effect of rig aerodynamics. The methodology was applied to two rigs with different aerodynamics. Rain erosion tests were conducted in the rigs on identical coating and aluminium samples. The results were compared against predicted number of impacts from the DNV-GL guideline. Contradictory results were found, concluding that the guideline does not provide an accurate comparison between all test rigs, as it does not account for rigs where large aerodynamic effects cause droplet concentrations or droplet break-up.
AB - Blade leading edge erosion has developed into a significant issue for the offshore wind industry. Protection solutions, including polymer coatings and tapes, are often applied to increase the blade lifetime. Experimental evaluation of protection systems is typically conducted in whirling arm rain erosion test rigs. Currently, there is no thoroughly validated method to relate the test results to real-world erosion performance. Furthermore, the design of rigs is not sufficiently limited to enable comparison of results between different rigs. Industry guideline, DNV-GL-RP-0171, provides a comparison method to address this issue. This paper describes the development of a droplet particle tracking Computational Fluid Dynamics methodology for rain erosion test rigs, which models the impact strike characteristics of a droplet, the number of impacts and the effect of rig aerodynamics. The methodology was applied to two rigs with different aerodynamics. Rain erosion tests were conducted in the rigs on identical coating and aluminium samples. The results were compared against predicted number of impacts from the DNV-GL guideline. Contradictory results were found, concluding that the guideline does not provide an accurate comparison between all test rigs, as it does not account for rigs where large aerodynamic effects cause droplet concentrations or droplet break-up.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066445173&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/1742-6596/1222/1/012011
DO - 10.1088/1742-6596/1222/1/012011
M3 - Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)
AN - SCOPUS:85066445173
SN - 9781510887886
VL - 1222
T3 - Journal of Physics: Conference Series
BT - WindEurope Conference and Exhibition 2019: Delivering a Clean Economy for All European
T2 - WindEurope Conference and Exhibition 2019
Y2 - 2 April 2019 through 4 April 2019
ER -