Experiments of Wind Turbine Blades with Rocket Triggered Lightning

Abstract

This paper describes the results of the experiments of wind turbine blades with rocket triggered lightning. A number of wind power stations have been projected and planted. Lightning damage to wind turbines has been an increasing problem recently. So development on protection of wind power plants from lightning is necessary to be fully run for the future.
In the experiments, the 1.8m long blade was struck by the lightning discharge triggered by rocket. For the blade kept dry inside, the very strong discharge of positive peak current 28kV, total charge 520 Coulombs, was triggered, but the breakdown did not occur through the blade into inside. Another blade polluted by salty wet inside was struck by the lightning discharge of negative peak current of 4kA with 0.5 Coulombs. The lightning was small, nevertheless, the blade was broken at the upper edge and the blade was disconnected by crack. For the protection of blade, the blade surface was covered with stainless steel plate. The blade itself was safe when the big positive lightning discharged, while most part of stainless steel cover was burned out. Supplement breakdown tests of wind turbine blade were carried out with lightning impulse voltage in laboratory.
As a result, it became clear that the blade kept dry inside was an effective lightning protection of wind turbine blades.