A Comparative Study on Damage Mechanism of Sandwich Structures with Different Core Materials under Lightning Strikes

Jiangyan Yan, Guozheng Wang, Qingmin Li, Li Zhang, Joseph D. Yan, Chun Chen and Zhiyang Fang
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Jiangyan Yan: State Key Lab of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Guozheng Wang: School of Electrical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Qingmin Li: State Key Lab of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Li Zhang: School of Electrical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Joseph D. Yan: Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK
Chun Chen: Sinoma Wind Power Blade Co., Ltd., Beijing 102100, China
Zhiyang Fang: Sinoma Wind Power Blade Co., Ltd., Beijing 102100, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Wind turbine blades are easily struck by lightning, a phenomenon that has attracted more and more attention in recent years. On this subject a large current experiment was conducted on three typical blade sandwich structures to simulate the natural lightning-induced arc effects. The resulting damage to different composite materials has been compared: polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) suffered pyrolysis and cracks inside, while the damage to balsa wood was fibers breaking off and large delamination between it and the resin layer, and only a little chemical pyrolysis. To analyze the damage mechanism on sandwich structures of different materials, a finite element method (FEM) model to calculate the temperature and pressure distribution was built, taking into consideration heat transfer and flow expansion due to impulse currents. According to the simulation results, PVC had the most severe temperature and pressure distribution, while PET and balsa wood were in the better condition after the experiments. The temperature distribution results explained clearly why balsa wood suffered much less chemical pyrolysis than PVC. Since balsa wood had better thermal stability than PET, the pyrolysis area of PET was obviously larger than that of balsa wood too. Increasing the volume fraction of solid components of porous materials can efficiently decrease the heat transfer velocity in porous materials. Permeability didn’t influence that much. The findings provide support for optimum material selection and design in blade manufacturing.

Keywords: wind turbine blade; lightning strikes; materials damage; finite element method (FEM); temperature distribution; airflow pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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