Research of hot air blower de-icing technology for wind turbine blade

Abstract

Abstract. Aiming at ice accretion on wind turbine blade causes power production loss and affects its normal performance safety, a novel hot air blower de-icing technique for blades was researched. The numerical simulation for the whole profile of blades was applied, and flow distribution of the blade and heat transfer between inner blade and outside were analyzed. Temperature and heat distribution on blade cavity and leading edge were measured in constant temperature laboratory, and compared the simulation and experiment data. The results indicated that the ventilation pipe design of hot air blower de-icing system contributed to the heat accumulation around blade leading edge, and the effect of heat transfer on the four key-point sections were significant. Particularly, the deviation of temperature rise on leading edge between the simulation value (9K~19K) and the test temperature value(11K~16.8K) was only 8.5%, which illustrated that it reached the requirement of de-icing from the baffle to the blade tip. The deviation between temperature value and average value of three blades leading edge was within 9.5%, which proved high consistency of data and the heat distribution of blade leading edge was reasonable. The effectiveness of hot air blower de-icing technology was verified, which was propelling the development of wind turbine application in cold weather conditions.