Abstract

Modern wind turbines are now starting to reach heights above 300m. The tall, rotating blades of the turbine are highly susceptible to lightning strikes. In the form of an extremely high-temperature and high-pressure shockwave, this electrical discharge can cause structural damage within milliseconds and repairing this damage requires significant downtime and costs. Lightning strikes can cause delamination of the blade’s composite plies, which may not be visible upon inspection. Over time, this can lead to a creep deformation during operation, resulting in blade failure earlier than its rated life. This paper summarizes a multi-physics simulation process that can be used to predict the delamination of composite blade plies when subjected to a lightning strike.

Extended Abstract

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