Show notes
Will Howell discusses Armor Edge's thermoformed polycarbonate leading edge protection for wind turbine blades. Their solution helps to mitigate erosion, enhance aerodynamic performance, and extend blade life.
Allen Hall: Will welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So Joel and I have heard about Armor Edge for a couple, couple of years. Yeah. You're based in Scotland. Yeah. And we haven't seen you much in the United States and I haven't physically touched it.
And of course we're sort of tangible. We gotta play with the the product. So this is the first time now we're here. Gotten to see the product. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna describe really what this product is for a leading edge protection?
Will Howell: Yeah, absolutely. So we are different to other LEPs out there on the market.
And really that was the whole point of our design evolution, was to try to overcome some of the traditional downfalls of some of the other LEDs that have been prevalent on blades. So. Um, yeah, we've been around since, um, well about eight, eight years now. And we've been out in the market installed since 2020.
So we're, as you mentioned, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland is a kind of a base. So our first installs were all offshore, north North Sea, so offshore, Denmark, offshore [00:01:00] Germany. Very harsh, harsh environments. But we wanted to, to design an an LEP that was, um, really. Overcoming some of the traditional pitfalls.
So for us, that is the ease of installation, the longevity of the material, and also the a EP benefits that we, that we see. Um, as you see for the sample we have in front of us here today, it's uh, only a small piece that we take to show just to, to, to show our clients and customers. Um, but typically the shields are 850 mil mil long.
Uh, they're made of a, a custom thermoformed, um, polycarbonate, a SA blend. We get the material formed into sheets, and then we drape that sheet over custom design molds that are tailored for the specific blade types. And that's how we get this perfect fit on every different blade that we're, that we're, um, that we have out, out there.
So let's talk about the installation. Yeah.
Joel Saxum: Because that's [00:02:00] a, that's a really important one for me because on the podcast we always wanna talk about what problems we're, what problems we're solving. Sure. What problems you guys are helping the industry with. And one of the biggest ones with LAP, and it doesn't matter what the product really is, if it's tapes, if it's coatings, if if it's installed wrong, it's not gonna last.
Yep. Yep. That's, that's the thing. So what have you guys done with this to help the technicians in the field to make it easier to make it. Last I want you to put on the line.
Will Howell: Yeah. I mean, I guess there's a lot of technology in terms of the performance of the, of the product. Um, both the adhesive and the material itself.
But predominantly this was designed for rope access in the North Sea, so it had to be a product that the guys were. Able to handle up on, up on rope. Um, it wasn't gonna be affected by climatic conditions as much, um, and would really lead to a faster, but also therefore, a higher quality installation because of the way that it's put on, it's not so much of a artisanal process that some of these other LEPs seem to [00:03:00] suffer from.
We want to. Train our technicians to deliver a high quality installation, but really you don't have to be a master LEP installer to get our, to get our kit on, our kit on Blade. And that's the feedback we've been getting from the technicians is that they find it, uh, easy to handle, easy to apply process, uh, in the field.
Joel Saxum: What does Blade Prep look like before you put it on?
Will Howell: Well, another unique. Facet of the system is because the shields themselves are custom formed from a a semi-rigid material. The leading edge of the shields themselves doesn't conform to the existing erosion on the blade. So in terms of applying this to the blade surface, if you have existing cat one, two, or three erosion.
You don't need to repair that and bring it back up to the original design intent. Air Aerofoil. In fact, you just need to remove the loose or flaking material. Do a final clean with an with an IPA. Then you're ready to apply the adhesive into the target area. I. Draw the adhesive down with our custom tooth [00:04:00]spreader and then apply the shield straight on top.
So you're actually using the, the high performance MMA as a high build filler behind the shield itself,
Joel Saxum: basically like, uh, like if you're setting tile.
Will Howell: Yeah, very similar. Very similar. You scrape the mud down and it
Joel Saxum: creates a couple paths
Will Howell: and, exactly, exactly. The adhesive itself is very high performance, so the
MMA that we use has got a very high gap fill. Indeed. It can gap fill up to an inch if you had some severe holes on there without overheating. Um, but it can also be installed within. Any humidity, any dew point is indifferent to those conditions, as well as from freezing point right up to very high temperatures, kind of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
Um, and we've, we've seen those conditions we're installed across four different continents now, majority starting over in Europe, offshore, and now we're. Some North India. We've got some in Southern Australia, and now the states, the past couple of couple of seasons where Iowa, Wisconsin, [00:05:00]Michigan, up in the north are kind of colder climbs as well as the southern states, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico.
The polycarbonate is slippery. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So does it accumulate ice? We haven't had any specific testing on that, but we haven't had any negative reports either. We've been less, we've been, we've been, we've been out there in the field now for five years. We've never lost a shields due to de bonding, we've never had any damage to any shields reported to us.
It's a very resilient product, so we don't believe that I. Has a particular attraction to the material, no worse than a traditional top coat. Um, we've actually been speaking to the guys from phase break who, who you'll know with their nine ice products and they're happy that you can apply nine ice over the top of this if you wanted to kind of double up that protection.
Allen Hall: Yeah, because that, that does make a lot of sense. If, if we're talking North Sea and Iowa, those are two wildly in different environments. But the research I've done on your [00:06:00] material. I, I, I probably saw your early 2020 is when I first, I remember seeing Armor Edge and thinking, okay, these guys are onto something.
Knowing a little bit about leading edge rosn on aircraft and how we deal with it there. Mm-hmm. The technical details made sense to me. I hadn't seen it in a shell form. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this, this makes a lot more sense now. So then when you actually get on a blade offshore, which would be the probably the ideal case because the return on investment is like instantaneous on these bigger turbines that you're just, you're just doing very little prep at all.
Then you're just basically knocking off the little particles that are maybe hanging on applying MNA and then just. Starting where from the root working down, if we go from the tip up, we actually work
Will Howell: from the, uh, tip. Yeah. So one of the facets of our system, compared to the traditional soft shells or the tapes, you don't have to manipulate and stretch the material over the nose of the, of the, uh, [00:07:00] blades.
The first shield is actually a, a section with a pressure suction side and a closed end. So it simply fits over the top of the tip. Like a suck gives you a very Exactly. It gives you a very. Solid boot to kind of start from, and then you work in series from, from there in sections around 850 mil long, working in the direction of the of, of the route.
Our customers have different lengths of application that they like to work to. We work in sections, but typically around 20% of the blade is, is kind of what we cover. Okay. Yeah. I, I
Allen Hall: wonder how far they were gonna go inboard, because I've seen some where they go really far inboard, like six to
Joel Saxum: eight meters.
Yeah.
Allen Hall: Yeah. So you're, you're not going all that far. Yeah. Typically.
Will Howell: You know, on the onshore machines here, some of the typical GE blades, the 56.962 point twos up at the 10, 12 meters or so. Okay. It's, it's just kind of a typical Okay. That
Allen Hall: makes, that makes sense. Then, so the, the process goes clean the blade apply MMA, put these [00:08:00] sections on, do the interlock, and what do you do with the trailing edge?
Will Howell: Yeah, absolutely. So again, it's a. An issue that we've seen on other, on, on other systems of either one really long piece, which is almost impossible to handle with a pair, a pair of texts, or having many separate pieces with a complicated join that leaves it very exposed. Our sections are formed and then they're very accurately CNC cuts, and we have male and female features on either end that interlock with, um, on, on two sides of the, uh, of the leading edge cord.
And so the technicians can't get them the wrong way round. They made up completely butting against each other, leading to a very flush flash. Fit over that leading edge. Leading edge section.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. 'cause I could, I could picture like if something like this wasn't here and they were just flat, like they're kind of like it walking off Yeah.
Kind of getting wonky on the late edge. But this is gonna keep 'em locked in.
Will Howell: Exactly. This is alley. And so that just, you just working, working sections towards the, towards the roots, the adhesive that we use. Even though it's an MMA,