In the present study, a comprehensive experimental study (performed in the icing research tunnel at Iowa State University, i.e., ISU-IRT) is introduced to evaluate the effectiveness of the different bio-inspired icephobic coatings/ materials for aircraft icing mitigation. An innovative method is also elaborated to examine the durability of the different icephobic coatings/materials in preventing erosion caused by high-speed impact of supercooled droplets pertinent to in-flight aircraft icing phenomena. It is found that, while all of these icephobic coatings/ materials could effectively reduce/prevent ice accretion over airframe surfaces where strong shear stress is exerted, there is always ice formation in the stagnation region (i.e., around the airfoil/wing leading edge) under direct droplets impacting conditions. The durability of the different coatings/materials is quantitatively characterized based on the changes in the droplet contact angles and ice adhesion strengths in different erosion states during the high-speed impact of supercooled droplets. A novel hybrid anti-/de-icing strategy is also introduced by combining leading-edge heating and icephobic coatings to achieve more effective icing control with the minimum use of heating power. The findings derived from the present study are very helpful to provide a practical guideline for proper selection of optimized icephobic coatings/materials for aircraft icing mitigation.

Experimental investigations on Bio-inspired icephobic coatings for aircraft inflight icing mitigation</i>

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.