Investigation on lightning arc damage of wind turbine blade based on large current experiment and molecular reaction dynamics

At present, PVC and balsa wood are usually adopted in the sandwich structure of the wind turbine blade. However, comparative research on the damage characteristics of the two materials under lightning arc was seldom reported. In this paper, firstly large current impact experiment was carried out on PVC and balsa wood to simulate the thermal effect of lightning arc, the results showed that with the increase of the current amplitude, there was an apparent reduction in the residual strength of PVC and balsa wood, and the residual strength of PVC fell faster. Secondly, the molecular reaction dynamics was used in this paper to analyze the chemical reaction process of PVC and balsa wood quantitatively, the degradation mechanism was revealed in three aspects: degree of polymerization, gas generation characteristics and water motion. This study plays an important guiding role for wind turbine blade material selection in different environments.