Knitted Soldered Meshes and Nanostructured Carbon Particles for Lightning Protection of Wind Turbine Blades from Composite Materials

Abstract

The experience in designing aircraft components for lightning protection was employed to develop knitted soldered meshes to decrease damage of the composite used to make wind blades to benefit from improved dissipative properties. Conductive nanostructured carbon modifiers are proposed to improve the electric conductivity of carbon plastic fiber laminates and enhance the adhesion strength between the carbon fibers and binder. Knitted soldered copper meshes are suggested to improve the lightning protection of wind turbine blades (lightning capturer and lightning current conductive bus). The research results will be useful for general efficient lightning protection of wind turbine blades.