Optical Temperature Sensor for Thermodynamic Measurement of Icing Dynamics

A fundamental understanding of the icing process for aircraft requires a more thorough analysis of the thermodynamics of supercooled droplet impingement. To better study such thermodynamic processes, a novel temperature sensor that functions within supercooled water and ice crystals was developed. The temperature sensor is non-intrusive and provides temperature and phase change information for both liquid water and solid ice. The temperature sensor is an optical sensor based on the luminophore pyranine. The use of pyranine allows for the measurement of spatially and temporally resolved temperature fields for icing applications. The sensitivity of the sensor is -9.2±0.1%/K for temperature measurement in the solid phase and 0.8±0.1%/K for the liquid phase. The performance of the sensor was demonstrated through a calibration process using spectral analysis, the observation of the melting process of a rectangular prism created from the luminescent ice, and the study of the temperature profile of accreted ice onto a cooled surface. Measurements of the melting and accreted ice were performed using a high-speed color camera.