Rain erosion resistance of injection moulded and compression moulded polybutylene terephthalate PBT

Offshore wind turbine rotor diameters still increase. Blade tip velocities are up to 110 m/s, giving rise to more severe raindrop impact conditions and related erosion of the wind turbine blades. In the current work droplet impingement erosion tests were performed for injection moulded and compression moulded polybutylene terephthalate PBT. The measured incubation periods were compared to an extended and improved fatigue based erosion model. The developed erosion test set-up was based on a high water pressure nozzle system spraying water drops at a stationary PBT surface. Model results with thermoplastic materials simulating heavy rain conditions with a droplet size of 1.8 mm and an impact velocity of 120 m/s are shown. Model results with PBT materials simulating the used test conditions are shown and compared with the measured incubation periods. Although a reasonable similarity between test results and model calculations for the injection moulded PBT was found, the absolute value of the incubation period predicted by the model for compression moulded PBT differed substantially. This probably resulted from the lower confidence level of the S-N curve for the compression moulded PBT. The droplet impingement measurements and model predictions both showed a substantially higher incubation period for injection moulded PBT compared to compression moulded PBT.