By conducting tests at the LABELEC High Voltage Laboratory, which will study the effects of atmospheric electricity on aircraft and wind turbines using drones
MIT-Spain "laCaixa" Foundation Seed Fund has started a call to fund a project between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States in collaboration with Carmen Guerra-García, 'Space Propulsion Laboratory’ researcher at MIT and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), led by Joan Montanyà Puig from the Lightning Research Group. It is the second year in a row to fund a project between these two research groups. In the previous project some tests were already carried out in our Labelec High Voltage Laboratory and in this new project it is also scheduled a new collaboration at our laboratory, including more tests.
The project proposes that drones are a unique platform to study the electrical effects of the atmosphere on aerial vehicles and elevated structures such as wind turbines, which in the near future could reach a height of 300 meters. They will study the corona discharge, an electrical phenomenon precursor to lightning. In the case of aircraft and wind turbines, environmental electric fields are amplified by factors of 10 or more on the surface of the structure. And this field expansion, combined with the effects of rapid movement, leads to the occurrence of electric corona discharges on the sharp terminations: in particular, at the tips of the blades of wind turbines and the ends of the wings and stabilizers of the aircraft.
The electric corona discharges that will be researched are of great importance because they are precursors to lightning storms and contribute to the long-term degradation of the composite materials that make up aircraft and turbines.
We wish you great success!
Our Labelec laboratory simulates the conditions of lightning strikes on aircraft and wind turbines.