Optimization of Water Droplet Impact on GFRP Blade Materials with Taguchi Technique

The aim of the research is to compare the erosion performance under the effect of polyurethane coated and uncoated wind turbine blade (WTB) with Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) material in offshore environmental conditions. The experiments were conducted on erosion tester using two parameters such as impact velocity (60, 90,120 m/s) and impact angle (30°,45°,60°). The experimental design was generated with the help Taguchi L9 array. Polyurethane spray coating was applied and offshore conditions were simulated using salt water. Furthermore, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) testing was done to study the surface morphology and Minitab software was used for statistic and Origin software was used to create graphs. The main finding shows that the impact velocity is the most influencing factor as compared to impact angle. Moreover, the surface morphology reveals the ductile mechanism of erosion and 93% more mass loss was measured in uncoated surface than coated surface.