Technical Paper
Numerical Simulation of Ice Formation on a Helicopter Fuselage
2007-09-24
2007-01-3308
Over the past few years, we have developed a unique approach to simulate aircraft icing numerically; we call this method morphogenetic modelling. Previously, we developed a successful two-dimensional version of the model; the objective of our present research is to show that the morphogenetic modelling approach can be extended to three-dimensional in-flight icing. In this paper, we focus on the simulation of three-dimensional, discrete rime structures forming on the fuselage of a helicopter. The numerical model consists of three components: an airflow solver, a drop trajectory solver, and a morphogenetic ice growth model. The velocity field of the flow is computed using the Euler equations, while the drop trajectories are computed using a Lagrangian approach. Computation of drop impact locations determines the local collision efficiency distribution. The morphogenetic model deals with the processes occurring on the impinging surface.