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The National Research Council’s Gas Turbine Laboratory provides industry leading icing facilities that allow manufacturers to develop, validate and certify new products for flight in adverse conditions. This paper shows how NRC measurement techniques are used across the facilities, and presents a literature-review of recently developed capabilities. The overview includes new details on some facilities, and future capabilities that are in development or planned for the near future. Methods developed at the NRC for characterizing inclement conditions are discussed and include the Isokinetic Probe, Particle Shadow Velocimetry, the Particle Detection Probe, and a size-binned real-time thermodynamic evaporation model.

The Global Aerospace Centre for Icing and Environmental Research Inc. (GLACIER) facility is located in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. This facility provides icing certification tests for large gas turbine engines, as well as performance, endurance and other gas turbine engine qualification testing. This globally unique outdoor engine test and certification facility was officially opened back in 2010. The prime purpose of this facility is for icing certification of aero gas turbines. As a generic engine test facility, it includes the infrastructure and test systems necessary for the installation of both current and future gas turbine engines. The GLACIER facility completed its commissioning in the winter of 2010/2011, and has now experienced five years of full icing seasons. Rolls-Royce and Pratt and Whitney have both successfully performed certification and engineering icing testing with 5 engines completing their icing certification.

This paper describes the commissioning of a linear compressor cascade rig for ice crystal research. The rig is located in an altitude chamber so the test section stagnation pressure, temperature and Mach number can be varied independently. The facility is open-circuit which eliminates the possibility of recirculating ice crystals reentering the test section and modifying the median mass diameter and total water content in time. As this is an innovative facility, the operating procedures and instrumentation used are discussed. Sample flow quality data are presented showing the distribution of velocity, temperature, turbulence intensity and ice water concentration in the test section. The control and repeatability of experimental parameters is also discussed.

The Global Aerospace Centre for Icing and Environmental Research (GLACIER) facility has been constructed in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. This project involves the construction and operation of a facility which will provide icing certification tests for large gas turbine engines, as well as performance, endurance and other gas turbine engine qualification testing. MDS Aero Support, in partnership with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), Pratt and Whitney Canada, and Rolls Royce Canada, has developed a globally unique outdoor engine test and certification facility. The prime purpose of this facility is for icing certification of aviation gas turbine engines, initially for Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, two of the three largest gas turbine manufacturers in the world.

The Gas Turbine Laboratory of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has been involved in icing certification testing of gas turbine engines for over 60 years. It has become evident from flight incident reports in recent years, that ice crystals can have serious effects on the performance of the core of a gas turbine. This has led to the proposal of a new certification requirement for turbofan engines. This paper describes the test facilities and procedures, as well as the analysis and verification methods, which have been used recently to develop a new ice crystal generating system. The paper describes the ice crystal production and delivery systems, as well as the design and development version for business jet sized engines. In addition, a description of some component testing using ice crystals on a heated flat plate is included to demonstrate that the facility can replicate rapid ice crystal build-up on surfaces which are significantly above the melting point.