Research on lightning protection metal mesh for wind turbine blades

Lightning seriously threatens the safe and stable operation of wind turbine blades. This paper studies the lightning protection ability of different kinds of metal mesh. Lightning currents are applied on wind turbine blades equipped with metal mesh, the max lightning withstand ability of different metal meshes are obtained. From the test results, it can be confirmed that, the copper mesh can withstand 158kA lightning current and the metal mesh itself is not damaged. Under 201kA lightning current, it can protect test pieces from damage but the metal mesh itself was injured. For aluminum mesh, can withstand 101kA lightning current to protect the fiberglass board from damage while the aluminum mesh itself is damaged.