The long-established automated guided vehicles work following predefined paths in factories. Currently, more flexible autonomous mobile robots are being deployed in industry, capable of adjusting their routes using simultaneous location and mapping algorithms. To properly adapt to manufacturing environments, where people and vehicles also operate, mobile robots need to comply with the rules that govern their interactions within the shop floor environment. These rules, which can be implicit or not, span from interpersonal distance to critical logistical zones that cannot be obstructed. These rules have not been thoroughly studied in production environments. Since these rules and constraints can change from one factory to another, a systematic approach to collect data was designed in this work. Firstly, data was extracted by surveying factory truck drivers and pedestrians about how they would deploy a mobile robot. Secondly, a portable sensor pack consisting of a light detection and ranging planar sensor and an inertial measurement unit was used to collect information about how trucks and pedestrians move. Finally, an autonomous mobile robot was manually controlled and the sensor…

Results from three-dimensional computer models of a Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) based de-icing system are compared to experimental data obtained at UTAS-Ohio Icing Wind Tunnel (IWT). A prototype of the CNT based de-icing system being jointly developed by UTAS and EMBRAER was installed in a section of a business jet horizontal tail and tested in the IWT for a range of conditions. The 3D numerical analysis tools used in the comparisons are AIPAC and FENSAP-ICE®. The former was derived from an anti-icing model developed at Wichita State University in 2010. AIPAC uses the finite volumes method for the solution of the icing problem on an airfoil leading edge (or other 3D surfaces) and relies on CFD solvers to obtain the external flow properties used as boundary conditions. The latter is a computer code for icing simulations currently commercialized by ANSYS®. Both tools are capable of predicting 3D multi-step ice shapes under rime, glaze and mixed regimes, and can also deal with the complex dynamics of cyclic ice accretion, melting, and shedding present in the realm of…

An improved anti-icing design with film heating ejection slot and cover for the inlet part of aero-engine was brought out, which combines the interior jet impingement with the exterior hot air film heating and shows promising application for those parts manufactured with composite materials. A hybrid method based on the combination of the Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) is developed to optimize the anti-icing design for a typical aero-engine inlet strut in two dimensions. The optimization aims to maximize the heating performance of the hot air film, which is assessed by heating effectiveness.The film-heating ejection angle and the cover opening angle are the two geometric variables to be optimized. Numerical model was established and validated to generate training samples for BPNN, which is used to predict the objective function and find the optimal design variables in conjunction with the GA. The optimal values of the film-heating ejection angle and the cover opening angle were achieved for a given heat flow rate as a demonstration, and the effects of film-heating ejection angle…

The electro-thermal method is most commonly used for wind turbine anti-/de-icing. The upmost drawback of such systems is the high power consumption. In the present study, we proposed to use a durable slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS) to effectively reduce the power requirement of the heating element during the anti-/de-icing process. The explorative study was conducted in the Icing Research Tunnel at Iowa State University (ISU-IRT) with a DU91-W2-250 wind turbine blade model exposed under severe icing conditions. During the experiments, while a high-speed imaging system was used to record the dynamic ice accretion process, an infrared (IR) thermal imaging system was also utilized to achieve the simultaneous surface temperature measurements over the test model. In comparison to the traditional electrical heating strategies to brutally heat massive area of entire turbine blades, a novel heating-coating hybrid strategy, i.e., combining a leading-edge (LE) heating element to cover the first 30% of the chord length (C) along with using SLIPS to coat entire blade surface, was found to be able to keep the entire blade surface completely…

Aircraft icing is widely recognized as one of the most severe hazards to aircraft operating in cold weather. In the present study, a novel hybrid anti-/de-icing strategy, i.e., by combining an electric heating film coated with super-hydrophilic coatings near the airfoil leading edge and a super-hydrophobic coating to cover the rest of the airfoil surface, was explored for aircraft icing mitigation, in comparison with the method to cover bother electric heating film and the airfoil surface only with a super-hydrophobic surface coating. While a comprehensive experimental study was conducted to examine the characteristics of dynamic droplet impingement onto solid surfaces with different wettability used for the hybrid approach, a NACA0012 airfoil/wing model implemented with two different hybrid methods was installed in the Icing Research Tunnel at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU-IRT) for the anti-/de-icing experiments. It was found that, the supercooled water droplets continued spreading without receding and bouncing after impacting onto the super-hydrophilic surface, the wetting area for the super-hydrophilic surface was found to be about five times larger than those over the super-hydrophobic…

Recently developed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma-based anti-icing systems have shown great potential for aircraft icing mitigation. In the present study, the ice accretion experiments were performed on to evaluate the effects of different layouts of DBD plasma actuators on their anti-/de-icing performances for aircraft icing mitigations. An array of DBD plasma actuators were designed and embedded on the surface of a NACA0012 airfoil/wing model in different layout configurations (i.e., different alignment directions of the plasm actuators (e.g., spanwise vs. streamwise), width of the exposed electrodes and the gap between the electrodes) for the experimental study. The experimental study was carried out in the Icing Research Tunnel available at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU-IRT). While the dynamic anti-icing operation is recorded by using a high-resolution imaging system, a high-speed Infrared (IR) thermal imaging camera is used to quantitatively map the temperature distributions over the surface of the airfoil model during the anti-/de-icing processes. Preliminary results show that, heat dissipation mechanism of the plasma actuator array in either streamwise and spanwise configurations differ one from another…

We report the progress made in our recent efforts to develop and characterize a hot-air-based anti-/de-icing system for the icing protection of aero-engine inlet guide vanes (IGVs). The experimental study was conducted in an icing research tunnel available at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU-IRT). An IGV model embedded with U-shaped hot-air flowing conduit connecting to a hot air supplying system heated by using a high-power electric-heater was designed and manufactured for the experimental investigation. During the experiments, while a high-speed, high-resolution imaging system was used to record the changes in the dynamic ice accretion process over the surface of the IGV model with and without turning on the hot-air supplying system, the corresponding surface temperature distribution of the IGV model under different test conditions were measured quantitatively by using a row of embedded thermocouples. A comprehensive parametric study was conducted to examine the effects of the operation parameters (i.e., the temperature and flow rate of the hot air streams) of the hot-air-based anti-/de-icing system on its effectiveness for the icing protection of the IGV models.…

Ice accretion on aero-engines, especially on the fan blades, is the most 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 pre-scribed speed was also measured during the ice accretion experiment. It was found that, super-hydrophobic surface (SHS) coated blades was found to have much less ice accretion area, in comparison with the uncoated fan blades, under both glaze icing and rime icing conditions. Meanwhile, under the glaze icing condition, SHS reduced the…

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the dynamic ice accretion processes on bridge cable models with different surface modifications (i.e., Standard plain, Pattern-indented surface, and helical fillets). The icing experiments were performed in the unique Icing Research Tunnel available at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU-IRT). In order to reveal the transient ice accretion processes and the associated aerodynamic loadings on the test models under different icing conditions (i.e., rime vs. glaze), while a high-speed imaging system was used to capture the transient features of the surface water runback and ice accretion over the surface of the cable models, a high-accuracy dual-transducer force measurement system was also utilized to measure the dynamic aerodynamic loadings acting on the ice accreting cable models. It was found that, the addition of surface features (i.e., pattern-indented surface vs. helical fillets) could effectively influence the dynamic ice accretion process and the final ice structures. Based on the temporally-resolved measurements of the aerodynamic drag forces acting on the different cable models, it was found that, while the ice accretion on the…