Rain erosion tester for accelerated test of wind turbine blades

The focus area of this project is wind energy and the reduction of the cost of energy for wind turbines.

The project deals with a costly problem within the wind energy sector - erosion of the wind turbine blades caused by rain. The erosion can cause a considerable loss of aerodynamic efficiency - and significant costs to repair unforseen damages. This problem typically apears some time after erection of wind turbines. The concequences of erosiom are significant.

The objective in this project is to develope state-of-the-art techology within rain erosion testing.

A rain erosion tester provides an oppotunity for the coating-, blade-, wind turbime manufactures to test what surface that will provide the best endurance under rain exposure. This is very hard to perform theoretically and thereby the rain erosion tester offers manufactures a mean to identity and understand the risk of unexpected damages caused by erosion.

The technical aim of this project to develope the technology to a state-of-the-art level. This will enable the costomers to minimize erosion by very accurate simulation of erosion as well as inline vision and data interpretation.