Numerical Estimation of Anti-icing Heating Power for NREL 5MW Wind Turbine Blades in Cold Climate

This work aims to give an estimate of to heating power used in the anti-icing system of the NREL 5MW wind turbine rotor operating in a cold climate in the presence of suspended water particles in the air. In this work, the turbine blade was simulated using an in-house code implemented in OpenFOAM framework that uses compressible Lagrange-Euler approach to simulate water particles transport from the atmosphere to the blade surface. On the water film side, Shallow-Water Icing Model (SWIM) is used to simulate the icing and anti-icing process. The results show that at least 3% of the rated power of the rotor should be used just to keep the water film from freezing. It shows also that most of the heating power should be concentrated on the leading edge, lower surface of the blade, and the middle sections of the blade.