Warm-Air Itermittent De-Icing System for Wind Turbines

This paper s concerned with the one-dimensional transient heat transfer in a wind turbine blade leading edge that is covered by ice intermittent heating the surface, obtained by means of warm air channeled within the shell, was modeled to investigate the applicability of cyclical ice removal from wind turbine blades. Finite differencing was used to solve the heat diffusion differential equations. A conservative approach was employed to jet the solution in terms of internal energy. A predictor corrector method was used to tackle the problem of the water phase change. The de-icing capability of the Warm air system was investigated for a typical rotor blade tip section, and its operational limits were illustrated. The comparison with usually employed continuous anti-icing systems showed the de-icing system to offer remarkable reduction of the energy consumption required for the ice prevention system’s operation.