E-Mail IMAGE: This drone photo from a field study of icing on wind turbines shows how ice accumulated at the tip of a turbine blade during a winter storm. view more Credit: Photo courtesy of Hui Hu/Iowa State University AMES, Iowa - Wind turbine blades spinning through cold, wet conditions can collect ice nearly a foot thick on the yard-wide tips of their blades. That disrupts blade aerodynamics. That disrupts the balance of the entire turbine. And that can disrupt energy production by up to 80 percent, according to a recently published field study led by Hui Hu, Iowa State University's Martin C. Jischke Professor in Aerospace Engineering and director of the university's Aircraft Icing Physics and Anti-/De-icing Technology Laboratory.