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.





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