Droplet Impact Erosion Mill (DIEM)

Project Description

A critical factor in efficient generation from the 4,600MW capacity of existing Irish wind farms is the quality of the laminar air flow. The best efficiency achieved to date across the grid was 81%, however losses of up to 25% can occur due to poor leading edges' surface quality. With aging infrastructure, wear on leading edges will become a recurrent issue. Wind farm management will now have to decide on the choice of coatings to be applied to existing assets. At present the maintenance is carried out by a small number of companies, but the choice of potential coatings is broad and increasing over time. Large paint companies dominate the market, but smaller companies also have specialised coatings for such applications. The ESB operates wind farms using turbines supplied by a number of different Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). This project aims to support Irish wind farm operators by providing a better understanding of coatings on existing turbines, as well as other coating options for future maintenance. Therefore, it is important to benchmark such available coatings under simulated conditions to maximise their operation lifetimes. This collaborative projects aims to test and benchmark commerically available wind turbine blade coatings.