ICE^2 · ICEphobicity for severe ICing Environments

Icing on structures represents a severe risk for human safety and has a significant economic impact on operation costs in many different areas such as aeronautics, power systems (e.g. wind turbines and electric power transmission lines), civil construction (e.g. bridges) and oil platforms to name a few. US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) estimates that each year there are about 30 icing related accidents in aeronautics in the US alone.Although icing research has a long tradition, there is a need to investigate the fundamental mechanisms of ice accretion, to improve the prediction of ice accumulation due to supercooled drops and ice crystals, which can adhere to cold surfaces and cause ice accumulation, and to develop effective ice protection systems. Impact of supercooled drops and ice crystals is particularly relevant to icing in severe icing conditions such as the ones with high degree of supercooling. The new proposed standards from Federal Aviation Administration published in June 2010 also recognize this as a very important problem. Therefore, the aim of the proposed project is to advance the fundamental science base on the dynamics and the phase change phenomena in severely supercooled drops and ice crystals interacting with surfaces and to define a new norm for icephobicity. Carefully designed supercooled drop and ice crystal impact experiments on solid surfaces with different texture and wettability are proposed as a means to develop the required understanding of ice adhesion. Through optimal choice of surface properties and results of impact experiments, the project will focus on developing so called icephobic surfaces, which should form the basis for a highly promising coating strategy to combat ice accumulation on surfaces by minimizing ice adhesion and increase the efficiency of present anti-icing systems.""