Refine Your Search

Search Results

Technical Paper

Ice Adhesion Performance of Superhydrophobic Coatings in Aerospace Icing Conditions

2015-06-15
2015-01-2120
Researchers have recently focused on superhydrophobic coatings as an ice-mitigation tool. These surfaces have a high degree of water-repellency and were shown in previous low-speed droplet studies to reduce surface ice adhesion strength. However, there is little research regarding testing in aerospace icing conditions, i.e. high-speed super-cooled droplet impact (> 50 m/s) on a freezing substrate and air temperature. A detailed set of experiments were conducted in an icing wind tunnel to measure the ice adhesion strength of various superhydrophobic coatings by subjecting the surfaces to a super-cooled icing cloud consisting of 20 μm droplets and at a constant LWC of 0.4 g/m3. Test conditions include air speeds of 50 m/s and 70 m/s and in glaze (−5°C) and rime ice regimes (−15°C). The accreted ice was then removed by pressurized nitrogen in a mode 1 (tensile) adhesion test.
X