Characterization of the erosion resistance of coatings for aerospace and windmill applications

Water droplet erosion has been an issue for more than 50 years now. Nowadays, the windmill industry is expanding faster than ever and the loss of energy production due to the erosion of the blades is significant. In the aerospace industry, the damage caused by water droplet erosion on the leading edges reduces their lifetime. Even more today when planes take off regardless of the weather conditions. The environmental considerations push the industry into building planes that will last for a longer period of time, increasing the importance of the erosion resistance of the materials. This work is divided in two parts : the first one is a state of the art of what is known of the mechanisms responsible for water droplet erosion, the parameters impacting the erosion resistance and all the existing protection solutions, and the second one where erosion tests are performed and the model used for the numerical simulations, its limits and the results are discussed.