Wind turbine performance under icing conditions

The effects of rime ice on horizontal axis wind turbine performance were estimated. For typical supercooled fog conditions found in cold northern regions, four rime ice accretions on the S809 wind 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 1-2 x 10⁶. These data were used in the PROPID wind-turbine performance prediction code to predict the effects of rime ice on a 450-kW rated-power, 28.7-m diameter turbine operated under both stall-regulated and variable-speed modes. Performance losses on the order of 20 percent were observed for the variable-speed rotor. For the stall-regulated rotor, however, a relatively small rime ice profile yielded significantly larger performance losses. For a larger 0.08-c long rime ice protrusion, the rated peak power was exceeded by 16 percent because at high angles the rime ice shape acted like a leading edge flap, thereby increasing the airfoil Cl(max) and delaying stall.