Wind Turbine Blade Material Behavior in Abrasive Wear Conditions

The wind turbine blades are exposed, during functioning, to the abrasive wear generated by the impact with air-borne sand particles. In this work, samples of a commercial wind turbine blade, made of a multi-layered composite material, are subjected to abrasive wear tests, using an air streamed wearing particles test rig. Following the analysis of the tests’ results was found that the only protection against failure of the blade by abrasive damage is the surface layer. After its’ penetration, the layers below are quickly destroyed, leading to the blade destruction. The investigation of the main abrasive wear influencing factors—particles’ speed and acting time, showed that the particles’ speed is the most important. To prove that an artificial neural network-based model was used. Also, a method for improvement of the blade resistance to abrasive wear is proposed, consisting of applying on the blade’s surface of a polymeric foil. This offers supplementary protection of the surface layer, delaying its degradation. The tests performed on the protected samples prove the validity of the proposed method. Overall, the work showed the weakness of the blades’ resistance in case of working in abrasive wear conditions and identified an improving method.