Operating turbines suffering from leading edge erosion (LEE) experience significant (up to 5%) annual energy production (AEP) loss and require expensive maintenance campaigns. Evaluation of state-of-the-art coating systems relies on rain erosion testing (RET) with no accepted method for the computational evaluation of the coatings lifetime. In this work, the computation framework for rain erosion developed in the DURALEDGE research project of DTU Wind Energy is subjected to analyses and used for the comparison of erosion performance of four novel leading-edge coating systems. Improvements for the computation workflow are proposed and implemented into the workflow. Furthermore, relevant conclusions are drawn linking the material’s visco-elastic properties to erosion performance.

Over the course of the last century, the aircraft-industry has continuously been developing and optimising the performance of their products. The rate of improvement has been decreasing, and it seems like an asymptote is being approached in the development of the current technologies. The demand for new innovative solutions is growing and these solutions shall allow the performance increase to bypass this stagnation. One of the solutions investigated is to develop an aircraft wing which has the capability to fly at optimal shape by autonomously optimising its own wing-shape during all phases of the mission. This could potentially lead to a severe increase in aerodynamic performance and controllability while actively minimising structural loads.