EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

The European Commission estimates that 450GW of offshore wind power is required to keep temperature rises below 1.5°C. To achieve this goal by 2050, the ongoing scientific and technological challenges on wind turbines must be met. Specifically, ice accumulation on turbine blades still stands a major operational issue for wind energy plants. Excessive ice mass on the blades lead to damage or total failure of the blades and the gearbox. To address this challenge, multifunctional coatings are required with water- and ice-phobic abilities to suppress ice accretion, delay the freezing and withstand environmental conditions on composite wind turbine blades.
Different modifications of polyurethane-based nanocomposite coatings are designed and applied at generic fiber-reinforced epoxy composite blades of 250 mm radius. To investigate the effect of coatings on the ice accumulation and especially on the leading edge, scaled rotor blades are tested in various environmental conditions using an in-house developed rotor test rig positioned inside a climate chamber. The coated blades are tested at different temperatures between +5°C to -20°C and ice accretion thickness up to 10 mm. The test bench provides various environmental conditions under different rotational speeds and ice distributions. It is equipped with various sensors to assess the mass, type, and spatial distribution of the ice.
Based on the experimental data, we identify and analyse the structure-property-process relations between the structural-material of the rotor and the functional-material of the coating, the interdependencies and the possible influence on the integrity of the rotor blade. The experimental data can then be applied for both a better understanding and the modelling of the physical phenomena.
-Filippatos, Angelos, et al. "Influence of Ice Accumulation on the Structural Dynamic Behaviour of Composite Rotors." Applied Sciences 10.15 (2020): 5063.
-Przybyszewski, Bartlomiej, et al. "Hydrophobic and Icephobic Behaviour of Polyurethane-Based Nanocomposite Coatings." Coatings 9.12 (2019): 811.