0000000000624909

AUTHOR

Marco Caboni

A probabilistic rainfall model to estimate the leading-edge lifetime of wind turbine blade coating system

Rain-induced leading-edge erosion of wind turbine blades is associated with high repair and maintenance costs. For efficient operation and maintenance, erosion models are required that provide estimates of blade coating lifetime at a real scale. In this study, a statistical rainfall model is established that describes probabilistic distributions of rain parameters that are critical for site-specific leading-edge erosion assessment. A new droplet size distribution (DSD) is determined based on two years’ onshore rainfall data of an inland site in the Netherlands and the obtained DSD is compared with those from the literature. Joint probability distribution functions of rain intensities and dr…

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A probabilistic long‐term framework for site‐specific erosion analysis of wind turbine blades: A case study of 31 Dutch sites

Abstract Rain‐induced leading‐edge erosion (LEE) of wind turbine blades (WTBs) is associated with high repair and maintenance costs. The effects of LEE can be triggered in less than 1 to 2 years for some wind turbine sites, whereas it may take several years for others. In addition, the growth of erosion may also differ for different blades and turbines operating at the same site. Hence, LEE is a site‐ and turbine‐specific problem. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic long‐term framework for assessing site‐specific lifetime of a WTB coating system. Case studies are presented for 1.5 and 10 MW wind turbines, where geographic bubble charts for the leading‐edge lifetime and number of repai…

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