An Experimental Study to Evaluate Hydro-/Ice-Phobic Coatings for Icing Mitigation over Rotating Aero-engine Fan Blades

Ice accretion on aero-engines, especially on the fan blades, is the very hazardous icing incident due to the potential performance degradation of jet-engines. In the present study, an experimental investigation was conducted to examine the performance of ice-phobic coatings for jet-engine fan icing mitigation. The experimental study was performed in the unique Icing Research Tunnel at Iowa State University (ISU-IRT) with a scaled engine fan model operated under wet glaze and dry rime ice conditions. To evaluate the effects of anti-icing coatings and to acquire the important details of ice accretion and shedding process on fan blade surfaces, a “phase-locked” imaging technique was applied with a high-resolution imaging system. The power input required to drive the engine fan model rotating at a constant prescribed speed was also measured during the ice accretion experiment. It was found that both super-hydrophobic surface (SHS) and ice-phobic coating have its advantage in engine anti-icing. SHS facilitated the blades surface with much less ice, under both glaze icing and rime icing conditions, while ice-phobic coating prevents the large ice chunk formed in the leading edge as the ice chunk easily shed from the leading edge, compared with SHS blade and blades with a hydrophilic coating. Meanwhile, ice accreted on fan blades was also found to result in the degradation of the engine performance as the required power input to drive the engine fan model increased significantly as the ice accreted on the fan blades. To fully investigate power consumption, all blades are painted with SHS. The test results show that all the blades surface are nearly ice-free and the power consumption remains at a lower level compared with the situation all blades without coating treatment.