Numerical Simulation of Electro-thermal Deicing Process and the Effects of Icing Conditions

Electro-thermal deicing process was an unsteady heat transfer process including phase change. Based on the investigation of such a process, a code was developed to numerically simulate electro-thermal deicing process. Phase change was performed by an enthalpy method. A staircase approach was used to describe the variable ice thicknesses along the icing surface. The control volume method was adopted to discretize the governing equations. Tri-diagonal matrix method, alternating direction implicit method and block-correction technique were used to solve the discrete equations. Results of temperature distribution in this investigation were compared with experimental results of previous study. Their good agreements indicate the validity of our simulation. The effects of icing conditions, such as ambient temperature, liquid water content (LWC) and flight velocity, etc., were analyzed through a case. Some useful conclusions were achieved.