Dylan S. Edirisinghe

Biography

I am PhD student from Engcore, SETU Carlow campus. My project aims to predict the wind turbine blades’ erosion by accounting the uncertain conditions of climates.

I received my bachelor’s from the University of Peradeniya- Sri Lanka (2019), majoring in Power and Energy stream in Mechanical Engineering. I completed my master’s research at Korea Maritime and Ocean University- South Korea (2021), in designing and testing of micro-hydro turbines to capture the waste energy from the industry. Later, I worked as a research assistant in the same laboratory. During that time, I contributed to wind turbine projects.

Here, I am now in SETU, pursuing my PhD, giving my best towards for sustainable future.

Research Project Description

Repair and maintenance of wind turbines mainly due to blade erosion is a critical issue in the wind energy industry due to the massive repair cost. Eroded blades degrade the performance of wind turbines reporting up to a 5% reduction of Annual Energy Production (AEP) for onshore turbines and even more for offshore.

My research project aims to study the erosion phenomenon mainly due to rain droplet impacts, considering the uncertainty of rain scenarios. Prediction of the blade erosion rate and phenomenon can help to develop new coating systems for wind turbine blades as well as detect the repairing frequencies. Once the rain erosion is well achieved, the study is supposed to extend towards the different climate conditions such as hail, dust and so on.

Research commences with the CFD study on single droplet impact on a rigid surface. The results of each impact are then integrated into structural analysis considering the uncertainty of the rain scenario. Structural analysis can be used to determine the stress on the coating allowing the calculation of the erosion damage rates. Those damage rates can be used to determine the repair frequencies and to develop less eroded coating systems for wind turbine blades.

Publications and Outputs

Edirisinghe, D.S., Yang, H.S., Gunawardane, S.D.G.S.P., Alkhabbaz, A., Tongphong, W., Yoon, M. and Lee, Y.H. (2023) ‘Numerical and experimental investigation on water vortex power plant to recover the energy from industrial wastewater’, Renewable Energy, Volume 204, pp. 617-634. doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2023.01.007

Edirisinghe, D.S., Yang, Kim, B.H., Kim, C.G., Gunawardane, S.D.G.S.P. and Lee, Y.H. (2022) ‘Numerical Optimization of Gravitational Water Vortex Turbine using Computational Flow Analysis’, IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 1037 012004. doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1037/1/012004

Edirisinghe, D.S., Yang H.S., Kim, Gunawardane, S.D.G.S.P. and Lee, Y.H. (2022) ‘Enhancing the performance of gravitational water vortex turbine by flow simulation analysis’, Renewable Energy, Volume 194, pp. 163-180. doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2022.05.053

Edirisinghe, D.S., Yang H.S., Kim, M.S., Kim, B.H., Gunawardane, S.D.G.S.P. and Lee, Y.H. (2021) ‘Computational Flow Analysis on a Real Scale Run-of-River Archimedes Screw Turbine with a High Incline Angle’, Energies, 14(11), 3307. doi.org/10.3390/en14113307

Edirisinghe, D.S., Kim, B.H., Gunawardane, S.D.G.S.P., Paik, J.M., Kim, M.S. and Lee, Y.H. (2020) ‘Computational Flow Analysis on 45degrees inclined, Real-scale Archimedes Screw Turbine’, IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Science and Data Engineering (CSDE), doi:10.1109/CSDE50874.2020.9411567