Wind Turbine Performance Under Icing Conditions

Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 306 Talbot Laboratory, 104 S. Wright Street Urbana. IL 61801-2935 The effects of rime ice on horizontal axis wind turbine performance were estimated. For typzcal supercooled fog conditions found in cold northern regions, four rime ice accretwns on the 5809 wmd 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 l-2 X 10 6 • These data were used in the PROPID wind turbine performance prediction code to predzct the effects of rime ice on a 450-kW rated-power. 28. 7-m diameter turbme operated under both stall-regulated and variable-speed/variable-pitch modes. Performance losses on the order of 20 percent were observed for the variable-speed/ vanable-p!tch rotor. For the stall-regulated rotor, however, a relatively small rime 1~e profile yzelded significantly larger performance losses. For a larger 0.08c-long nme zce protruswn, however, the rated peak power was exceeded by /6 percent because_ at hzgh angles the rime ice shape acted like a leading edge flap, thereby mcreasmg the mrfml C1.nuu and delaying stall.