Aircraft icing is a well-known problem that can have serious consequences for flight safety. To combat this problem, various ice protection systems (IPSs) have been developed and are currently used on most aircraft, including thermal ice protection systems. However, these systems can be costly, heavy and ineffective. Therefore, there is a need to improve the efficiency and response time of these systems. In recent years, research has focused on the development of hybrid systems that combine different ice protection technologies to achieve better performance.
In this sense, the use of an active element with a coating on its external part that improve its efficiency would be an important advance, but there is a wide range of active systems and even more of coatings and surface treatments. Therefore it would be helpful to have a test methodology that would allow a simple but thorough assessment of the performance of each passive system, and this is precisely what is proposed in this publication.
In order to decouple the behavior of the active system from the coating and to be able to evaluate the latter independently, a characterization sequence of passive systems has been developed considering different potential application areas and different icing conditions.
A novel aspect of this methodology is that the specimens were tested alongside an identical thermoelectric system used as reference that did not interfere with the coating. This allowed for the evaluation of the materials' properties with and without any application of energy.
The simple geometry of the specimens makes these tests feasible for coating techniques that do not accept complicated shapes. The aim of this methodology is to provide an accessible first evaluation of the materials in their use as IPSs. In addition, the test matrix allows the identification of the most appropriate applications for each of the passive system strategies studied.
Some results of the materials tested in the project in which this work was carried out are shown to illustrate the potential usefulness of the methodology.