Browse Topic: Aircraft deicing
Extreme winter weather often leads to ice accretion on transmission lines. Manual removal is inefficient, costly, and poses safety risks. To address this issue, this paper presents the design of a de-icing robot to replace manual operations for transmission line de-icing. The main content focuses on the detailed structural design of the robot, including the mobile platform, de-icing mechanism, and adaptive adjustment module. Finite element simulations are conducted on key components to verify the structural rationality and the correctness of material selection. The proposed de-icing robot enhances the safety of the de-icing process, improves operational efficiency, and provides a valuable reference for transmission line de-icing methods, demonstrating significant practical value.
This research demonstrates a facile method for fabricating an anti-icing coating through spray deposition on a metallic substrate. A dual-layer structure was designed to enhance icephobic properties: a primer layer incorporating fluorocarbon resin, butyl acetate, and rod-shaped micrometer-sized metal oxides to establish a secondary roughness morphology, followed by a topcoat composed of butyl acetate and nano-scaled superhydrophobic particles. Evaluation of the coating performance revealed a maximum water contact angle of 171.9°, indicating exceptional hydrophobicity. Furthermore, the coating exhibited notable abrasion resistance and anti-icing capabilities against overlaying ice.
Pilots, drivers, and automated safety systems in cars and airplanes could be alerted to icy hazards by a pair of sensors developed at the University of Michigan. Ice on roads causes around 20 percent of weather-related car crashes each year, and ice build-up on planes causes roughly 10 percent of all fatal air carrier crashes by interfering with aerodynamics and controls. For instance, a flight from Brazilian airliner Voepass Linhas Aéreas crashed near São Paulo on August 9, 2024, after the plane’s de-icing systems failed, according to a report in the Aviation Safety Network. An Air France flight also crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, after ice blocked the probes that measure the plane’s speed. In both cases, all occupants died.
As aerospace engineers push the boundaries of new frontiers, the need for advanced materials that can withstand the rigorous demands of these advanced applications is relentless. These materials go beyond functionality; it is about ensuring reliability in the skies, where failure is not an option. Fluorosilicone can help do exactly that. In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force noticed that conventional silicone-based sealants, coatings, and other components degraded rapidly when exposed to fuels, de-icing fluids, and other hydrocarbon-based solvents. Dimethyl-based silicones are non-polar and easily absorb hydrocarbon-based solvents, which may result in material swelling, mechanical weakening, and ultimately, failure.
The paper presents recent and ongoing activities of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) focusing on experimental icing investigations within the nationally funded project InTEnt-H (2018-2022) and progressive activities in continuing internal DLR projects. The aim of InTEnt-H was to investigate innovative de-icing and anti-icing technologies for small and medium-weight helicopters, for which no rotor de-icing technologies exist to date, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of these systems in a suitable test facility. For this purpose, the whirl tower test facility of the DLR in Braunschweig has been converted into an icing test facility that is unique in Europe and will allow for the generation of atmospheric icing conditions. In this facility, de-icing and anti-icing systems for rotor blades can be tested under centrifugal loads and various icing conditions. The paper starts with a short presentation of the retrofitting works at the DLR whirl tower test facility and its major components. Then, the progress of the first test campaigns of the projects are reported. The main focus is on the design and test of the de-icing rotor system, carrying different antiicing/ de-icing technologies. The paper closes with an outlook on the upcoming activities planned to satisfy and verify EASA CS-29 Appendix C icing conditions in the frame of the DLR internal project SAFER2.
The foundation specification (AMS1424) and the category specifications (AMS1424/1 and AMS1424/2) cover deicing/anti-icing materials in the form of a fluid.
The foundation specification (AMS1428) and the category specifications (AMS1428/1 and AMS1428/2) cover deicing/anti-icing materials in the form of a fluid.
The foundation specification (AMS1424) and the category specifications (AMS1424/1 and AMS1424/2) cover deicing/anti-icing materials in the form of a fluid.
The foundation specification (AMS1428) and the category specifications (AMS1428/1 and AMS1428/2) cover deicing/anti-icing materials in the form of a fluid.
Ice and snow accretion on aircraft surfaces imposes operational and safety challenges, severely impacting aerodynamic performance of critical aircraft structures and equipment. For optimized location-based ice sensing and integrated ‘smart’ de-icing systems of the future, microwave resonant-based planar sensors are presented for their high sensitivity and versatility in implementation and integration. Here, a conformal, planar complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) based microwave sensor is presented for robust detection of localized ice and snow accretion. The sensor has a modified thick aluminum-plate design and is coated with epoxy for greater durability. The fabricated sensor operates at a resonant frequency of 1.18 GHz and a resonant amplitude of -33 dB. Monitoring the resonant frequency response of the sensor, the freezing and thawing process of a 0.1 ml droplet of water is monitored, and a 60 MHz downshift is observed for the frozen droplet. Using an artificial snow chamber to create falling snow, a 1 mm thick accretion of snow shows a 35 MHz downshift in resonant frequency. The proposed sensor system can be extended using a novel radar-inspired method of Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR). TDR based ice/snow sensors can be implemented in an array or network structure for reliable, local and distributed ice and snow accretion monitoring on aircraft structures. Applying Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR) methods, three identical sensors with the same resonant frequency are monitored over an approximate length of 10 m and localized sensing of water is presented. This novel method offers a pathway towards implementation of large network-based resonant-microwave sensors for future reliable integrated localized icing and snow accretion rate-measurement sensors.
In-flight icing significantly influences the design of large passenger aircraft. Relevant aspects include sizing of the main aerodynamic surfaces, provision of anti-icing systems, and setting of operational restrictions. Empennages of large passenger aircraft are particularly affected due to the small leading edge radius, and the requirement to generate considerable lift for round out and flare, following an extended period of descent often in icing conditions. This paper describes a CFD-based investigation of the effects of sweep on the aerodynamic performance of a novel forward-swept horizontal stabilizer concept in icing conditions. The concept features an unconventional forward sweep, combined with a high lift leading edge extension (LEX) located within a fuselage induced droplet shadow zone, providing passive protection from icing. In-flight ice accretion was calculated, using Ansys FENSAP-ICE, on 10°, 15° and 20° (low, intermediate, and high) sweep horizontal stabilizers, with the tail as attached to the full-scale aircraft, for a 45-minute holding pattern. The aerodynamic analyses of the iced tails were carried out using Ansys Fluent Aero with angle of attacks from 0° to -15°. All three sweeps show reduction in lifting performance under icing conditions, due to early separation. However, comparisons of lift coefficient versus angle of attack (CL-α) curves, spanwise lift distributions, and three-dimensional flow fields show that increasing sweep reduces the early separation tendency along the span, but also reduces LEX lifting performance. This leads overall to reduced icing associated lift degradation at higher sweep. This effort has been undertaken as part of the Cleansky 2 IMPACT project (GA no. 885052).
This work presents the anti-icing simulation results from a pressure sensing probe. This study used various turbulence models to understand their influence in surface temperature prediction. A fully turbulence model and a transition turbulence model are considered in this work. Both dry air and icing conditions are considered for this study. The results show that at low Angle of Attack (AOA) both turbulence model results compared well and at higher AOA the results deviated. Overall, as AOA increases, the k-ꞷ SST model predicted the surface temperature colder than the Transition SST model result.
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