Wind turbine blade damages & failures: A review

Abstract

Wind energy source is the one of the most essential energy sources. In many countries, generation capacity of wind energy is continuously increasing and percentage share of wind energy across entire nation energy generation is also increasing. The wind turbine blades are one of the very critical and costly components of the wind turbine and their maintenance is a very tough job. The life of the turbine blade suffers highly on some factors such as material degradation, gusts, erosion, operational errors, fires and cause of variable load. Because the wind turbines are generally installed in harsh climates, the blade surface will be operating in the condition which cause breakage, erosion and failure. Therefore, the detection, prevention and protection methods for wind turbine blades is a significant issue. The blade surface material and coating plays an important role in performance, the intensive research is going on in this area to find a economical and feasible solution. This paper presents a review of prevention and protection methods of wind turbine blade.