Sunrez’s Tough Leading Edge Protection Solution

Brett Tollgaard from Sunrez discusses their new leading edge
protection solution, created using a durable UV-cure resin system.
Using this solution reduces downtime due to quick cure times and
strengthens leading edges for years to come. Sign up now for Uptime
Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology.
This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech.
Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS
retrofit. Follow the show
on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit
Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes'
YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Bret Tollgaard: Bret, welcome back to the
program. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Allen Hall: A lot has
happened at Sunrez and you guys are the magic UV cure resin systems
that everybody is using at the moment, but there's a bunch of new
products that are coming out that I think a lot of operators and
ISPs need to be aware of. One of 'em. Is a fill of material that
looks great when you're trying to fix the leading edges, which are
just mangled from all the dirt and debris and rain. It's not
something you can just kind of smooth over very easily. And a lot
of times operators spend a bunch of times sanding, grinding, trying
to get it where they can apply some sort of liquidy coating to it,
and it never really looks great and it's not really smooth. Bret
Tollgaard: Sunrez has fixed that. We sure have. We've got a lot of
customer feedback about some of the things that they'd like us to
expand our UV cure portfolio on, and one of the big ones was
leading edge protection. There's been a ton of different solutions
and stuff used over the years. Some with success, some. Slightly
less mild [00:01:00] success. Uh, and so we thought it was an
opportunity kind of right for the picking. And so, uh, the chemist
spent a reasonable amount of time trying to develop a highly
filled, uh, UV curable resin system that will live up to all the
abrasion, whether it's rain, uh, you know, particulates in the air,
et cetera. And so we've undergone some really reasonable rain
erosion testing thus far, and it's shown to be a pretty good
result. And so it's been a slightly soft rollout as we really kind
of finalize the formula in the system. But we really do think it's
a product that the, uh, customers are gonna love, whether it's a
pre impregnated, uh, fiberglass version, or potentially a, a putty
version as well. Joel Saxum: I mean, the LEP market is, you're
always hearing about new LEP, right? There's this LEP test, there's
a whole conference devoted to leading edge erosion that. The DTU
puts on, but it's because it's such a prevalent issue, right? Like.
Alan and I in the field looking at reviewing blade damages for
lightning and things. But we see all, all kinds of leading edge
erosion. That is, it's crazy how annuity these turbines, some of
these turbines are a [00:02:00] year, two, three years old, they're
still in warranty and the leading edges look like they've been hit
with a sandblaster. It's crazy. So the fact that you guys are
working on something and what we really like, of course, about the
UV cured products is that you get up there, you put it on, boom,
you hit it with the uv. You come off the tower, you turn it back
on. 'cause a lot of operators, and this is, this is where sun
really shines. A lot of operators are always talking about
downtime. Downtime. When we talk about installing strike tape, how
long do I need to leave the turbine off before? Well, we've working
on some solutions. We don't have to, uh, but. It's a, it's a very
common thing and I really, what I really enjoy about what you said
was customer feedback. So that means that you guys are in the
market, you're trusted in the market, and people feel, feel good
enough to come back to you and say, Hey, what about this? What
about this? What about that? Bret Tollgaard: Yeah. It's kind of
similar to our pre pprs. We originally offered those in 300
millimeter by 750 liter flat sheets. Uh, millimeter, excuse me. It
got [00:03:00] everyone kind of on the game experiencing some of
it. And then with some more customer feedback, we said, Hey, how
can we improve the product, the packaging, et cetera. And they
said, 10 meter long rolls of this exact same product would be
fantastic. We have less overlaps. We can cut to size, get to shape
a little easier, uh, and so we're always constantly trying to get
more customer feedback so we can adapt and tailor our products to
the markets that we're in. And with that LEP is just a tremendous
opportunity to really. Try to, uh, fast track some of the
opportunities to get blades back, uh, spinning quicker Allen Hall:
because there's really two ways of attacking the leading edge
erosion problem. And I think United States is a little bit
different than what would happen typically in Europe, uh,
especially up north where it's mostly rain impact. What happens in
onshore for the United States is I think a lot of dirt impact dust.
Mm-hmm. Dust, dust, dirt, right. Bugs Joel Saxum: till tillable
soil. Whenever we see turbines near or downwind of tillable soil,
the leading edge erosion always seems to be bad. Allen Hall: So
you're kind of getting hit with a [00:04:00] sandblaster. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's what it's like. Tip speeds are 200 miles an hour,
90 meters a second. You're hitting all this debris in the air and
it just beats the heck out of these blades. That's why the OEMs are
having problems in those areas. Kansas, Iowa, all those areas are a
problem. So the soft materials aren't necessarily the best for that
environment. Mm-hmm. Great For offshore. A lot of places Joel
Saxum: Absorbing rain. Droplets Allen Hall: rain, yes. And the
testing shows that, but in the Midwest, in the United States and
some of the areas, India, another place really harsh, where soft is
probably the not the right solution. Something a little more
durable, harder wear resistant. Is the right solution and that's
what Sunwest Bret Tollgaard: has developed, correct? Yeah. At the
end of the day, everybody wants a rubber rock. Something that can
take and withstand, maybe deflect some of the energy coming at it
at the same time too. Being sturdy and strong enough. Uh, to have
all the wear and abrasion resistance. And so once again, we've been
formulating UV cure resins for [00:05:00] decades. Yeah. And so
we've had filled products, unfilled products, et cetera, and you
manipulate some of the different concentrations of different
additives in there and you can really kind of tailor and tweak the
performance. And so. Uh, with that we have the ability to, once
again, kind of pre impregnate some fiber in case people want to
just wrap and do something kind of similar to the other film type
applications. Uh, but then once again, we also are able to provide
that in a putty form and so we can change and adapt the viscosity
to meet a certain customer's needs. And really kind of then based
on more potential OEM and ISP feedback. As to the processes that
they'd both, uh, like us to explore the most, we can certainly go
down that path, uh, a little quicker Joel Saxum: with a putty. So
I'm thinking, in my mind, I'm picturing a really nasty leading edge
ocean problem on a blade. Is there a thickness limit to a UV cured
product? Bret Tollgaard: There is. And the more filler you add, the
more difficult it is to penetrate through all of that. Yeah. And
the, the pre impregnated repair patches, we, uh, have right now,
the 73 55 resin formula, we can truly do an inch or a half inch
thick, excuse me, of prereq. [00:06:00] So fiberglass and resin,
right? Um, so 12 millimeters in under 10 minutes. So a Joel Saxum:
pretty, there's nothing that you're gonna run into that's gonna be
worse than that. Oh, and, and that's Bret Tollgaard: just it. So
the more fillers you add, it can change the color, it can change
the wavelengths, uh, that actually penetrate through that, uh,
resin. So we do a lot of testing, um, to really dial in a photo
initiated package to maximize that with the, uh, materials that we
have inside the resin. And so this new, uh, system that we're
working on is our 73 0 3 resin formula. Uh, and it's proving to be
a pretty resilient system. Uh, we've done quarter inch thick trials
thus far. As we thought that would kind of gonna be the maximum
that people were gonna be looking at. But we do have the capacity
to do more if required Allen Hall: because the, the magic, and this
is hard for engineers to think about when you want something that's
really stable on the leading edge of a blade, what you're trying to
avoid is a sort of a layering system. If you look at a lot of
[00:07:00] epoxies that are apply that are. Structural epoxies,
what they are is sort of a cross-linking process, and that
cross-linking process also makes it sort of breakable. Mm-hmm. So
if you hit it just right, it wants to fracture like a glass almost.
It's not that way, but it's similar, right? So the magic that sun
rests has done is said, okay. I'm gonna take a system that's
cross-linked together, but also a little amorphous to take those
impacts without fracturing and wearing away, because it's the
chipping and that's what you see on leading edges for a lot of the
epoxy. Yeah. It doesn't look like it's a, doesn't look like it's
been a braided. Yeah, it is, but it's fracturing. So you're getting
these like mini explosions that are happening in a sense, and it
just wears away. And then you're exposing fiber. And fiber doesn't
like that. Mm-hmm. And then it just starts to wear burl into where
Joel's pointed out, you can put your fist in some of these blades.
Yeah. That are only a year or two old is crazy. Yeah. And I
[00:08:00] think that's where the industry sort of missed one of
those areas. You could design a material.