Wind Turbine Performance
Under Icing Conditions
Jasinski, W., Selig, M.S. and Bragg, M.B.
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801
ABSTRACT
The effects of rime ice on horizontal axis wind turbine performance
were estimated. For typical supercooled fog conditions found in cold northern
regions, four rime ice accretions on the S809 wind turbine airfoil were predicted
using the NASA LEWICE code. The resulting airfoil/ice profile combinations
were wind-tunnel tested to obtain the lift, drag and pitching moment characteristics
over the Reynolds number range 1-2x106.
These data were used in the PROPID wind-turbine performance prediction code
to predict the effects of rime ice on a 450kW rated-power, 28.7m diameter
turbine operated under both stall-regulated and variable-speed/variable-pitch
modes. Performance losses on the order of 20% were observed for the variable-speed/variable-pitch
rotor. For the stall-regulated rotor, however, a relatively small rime ice
profile yielded significantly larger performance losses. For a larger 0.08c
long rime ice protrusion, however, the rated peak power was exceeded by 16%
because at high angles the rime ice shape acted like a leading edge flap,
thereby increasing the airfoil Clmax and
delaying stall.