In response to the challenges faced by our SME consortium, we have proposed an innovative Anti-Icing / De-Icing System. The DeICE-UT system will both:
- Stop ice from gathering on wind turbine blades during adverse weather conditions, and
- Remove any ice afterwards – This is important to ensure ice-free operation even if the ice accretion rate is very high.
The system will utilise two ice removal techniques that complement one another.
- The first will create high power ultrasonic guided waves with power densities of at least 1W/cm2 and frequencies of 20 to 200KHz in the blade that will shatter the ice – composite bond.
- The second will use low frequency (0-500Hz) controllable shakers that will vibrate the structure with accelerations that may exceed 30g, in order to shake and crack the ice off.
Both of these active elements will be mounted on the inside of the blade on locations that will be determined during the project.