Wind tunnel study of the electro-thermal de-icing of wind turbine blades

Abstract

Most of the wind turbines operating in cold climates are facing icing events, but very few of them are equipped with blade de-icing systems, and few studies were performed and published on the characteristics of these systems. In order to optimize the design and power consumption of an electro-thermal de-icing system for wind turbine blades, an experimental setup was built and used to test the system under icing conditions in a refrigerated wind tunnel. The parameters of the de-icing control system consider only the convective heat transfer at the blade surface during ice accretion. Meteorological data are those gathered from Murdochville's experimental site in Canada. The blade airfoil is a NACA 63-415, and the icing conditions are scaled to be simulated in the icing wind tunnel section. The results show the relation among the meteorological conditions, the ridge formed by liquid water runback, the heating power and the airfoil surface temperature. The study provides useful data for the design of electro-thermal de-icing systems for wind turbine blade application.