Today there is a strong development of wind power in northern Sweden, where risk for icing conditions is present. Icing of the blades leads to changing load conditions, production loss and risk of overloading the machine components. When the ice loose from the blades, the ice throw can lead to both physical damage and personal injury. Uncertainties around these issues threaten the planned expansion in the northernmost regions. Prediction of loads and production losses are of great importance for the durability and economy of wind power plants [[i]]. A thrust worthy numerical model of ice loads on wind turbines will be a valuable tool for minimizing the costs due to damage and production losses caused by icing.

This work presents a numerical model for simulating ice accretion on a wind turbine blade in lab-scale. It is a multi-physic model with interaction of three phases: the air, the water droplets and the wind turbine blade. The air flow is modelled with incompressible fluid dynamics (ICFD), the water droplets in the air is modelled with the discrete element method (DEM) and the wind turbine blade is modelled with the finite element method (FEM). A two way coupling is used for the interaction between the air and the water droplets and between the air and the wind turbine blade. A freezing condition controls the ice accretion when the water droplets hits the wing profile. The simulation is compared with a lab-scale experiment of ice accretion of a wind turbine profile in a wind tunnel found in literature [[ii]]. The experiment is well documented with well defined parameters such as: temperature, wind velocity, water content in the air, size of the water droplets, wing profile and angle of attack. Two simulations were done for two different angles of attack and validated by comparing ice profiles on the blades numerically and experimentally for the two cases. Similar ice profiles were found numerically and experimentally.

[[i]]             IEA Wind Recommended Practice 13: Wind Energy in Cold Climates, 2012.

[[ii]]                         C. Hochart et. al., “Wind Turbine Performance under Icing Conditions”, Wind Energy, 11, 319-333 (2008)