Icing Wind Tunnel Test of a Full Scale Heated Tail Rotor Model

In August and September of 2013 a rotor blade icing test was conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center's Icing Research Tunnel (IRT). The test model was a two bladed, teetering rotor with electro-thermal heater blankets installed onto the blades. The model was developed as part of the Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC) project entitled, "High Fidelity Icing Analysis for Rotors". This project was a collaborative effort between industry, academia, and government. This paper will present a description of the motivation behind the test, the model design, and the installation. This paper will also present a summary of the configurations, conditions, and challenges encountered during testing.