At present

wind turbine blades are often damaged by lightning strikes

resulting in serious economic losses; however

experimental studies on the lightning attachment characteristics of the blades are relatively lacking and incomplete. In this paper

a lightning discharge experimental platform for scaled-down wind turbine blades was set up at Xuefeng Mountain field station;moreover

the polarity and location of lightning were taken into consideration

and the lightning attachment characteristics of static and naturally rotating blades were simulated experimentally investigated and the probability of lightning strikes and the failure mechanism were analyzed. The results show that the positive and negative lightning strike attachment characteristics of wind turbine blades have a polarity effect

and the attachment point and its lightning strike probability are more centralized in the negative polarity

while more scattered in the positive polarity. In negative lightning strike

the overall interception performance of the blade lightning protection system (LPS) is better

especially receptor 1 (but ablation damage occurs in the vicinity). Under positive lightning strike

the lightning strike probability of receptor 1 is significantly reduced and transferred to the rest of the attachment point

enabling the other receptor to be very important; however

the overall lightning strike risk to the blade body is about 10%

and the risk of lightning strikes on the windward side of the rotating blade body is up to 25%

so it is necessary to pay attention to the protection of the positive lightning. Compared with stationary

blade rotation will lead to changes in the probability value of lightning strike at potential attachment points. Lightning rods are good at intercepting lightning from the leeward side to protect the nacelle. The limited shielding effect of glassfibre reinforced plastics blades with insulating properties on the electric field of the internal lead wires is the reason for the failure of receptor interception

and it is recommended that the outer conductor of the blades shield the lead wires from the electric field to optimize the protection performance of the LPS. The simulation results of this paper can provide guidance for the optimized design of wind turbine blade LPS.