Risk assessment method for lightning strikes on wind turbine blades

To study the probability of lightning strikes on wind turbines (WTs), this paper proposes a new methodfor evaluating WT lightning protection efficiency. It establishes a lightning strike distance formula based on lightningcurrent and receptor height, then determines the attractive areas of WT blades. The rate of lightning attachment of asingle blade (LASB) and the rate of lightning interception between multi blades(LIMB) is calculated by usingexposed line segments and shielding arcs. We observed that for a single blade, higher lightning current and smallerrotation angles increase LASB; lightning current affects LIMB similarly to LASB. The rotation angle, influenced bythe relative position of the multi blades and the lightning strike distance, affects the interception rate between theblades and with the increase of lv, both LASB and LIMB have shown significant improvement. This method providestheoretical support for WT lightning protection assessment.