Rain erosion of wind turbine blade coatings using discrete water jets: Effects of water cushioning, substrate geometry, impact distance, and coating properties

Rapid and reliable rain erosion screening of blade coatings for wind turbines is a strong need in the coatings industry. One possibility in this direction is the use of discrete water jets, where so-called jet slugs are impacted on a coating surface. Previous investigations have mapped the influence of water jet slug velocity and impact frequency.

In the present work, the effects on coating erosion of water cushioning, substrate curvature, and water nozzle-coating distance were explored. The investigations showed that in some cases water cushioning (the presence of a liquid film on the coating surface prior to impact) influences the erosion. Contrary to this, substrate curvature and the water nozzle-coating distance (<100. mm) did not influence the results to any significant degree.Mechanical measurements to characterize selected blade coatings, including tensile strength, flexibility, impact, hardness, and abrasion experiments, were also conducted.

The ranking of abrasion resistance of the blade coatings was in agreement with the ranking of rain erosion resistance measured in the whirling arm rig (an industrial standard).Results of this work, with more pertinent parameters explored, confirm the conclusion from the previous investigation that a direct correlation of data from discrete water jet experiments with those obtained in the whirling arm rig does not seem possible (at least not for the blade coatings considered).

The underlying mechanisms of rain erosion are substantially different in a setup based on impacting water jet slugs and a setup where a rotor arm impacts falling water drops.