Study of atmospheric ice accretion on onshore structures using CFD based numerical approach

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.

Atmospheric ice accretion occurs, when super cooled water droplets come into contact with the exposed surface of a structure in cold regions like arctic and alpine. Most investigations of this subject have been performed using experimental techniques, but for the last decade or so the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based numerical techniques have begun to play a significant role in understanding and simulating the atmospheric ice accretion on structures. This research work highlights the application of CFD in field of atmospheric ice accretion and describes the CFD based numerical analyses of atmospheric ice accretion on various on-shore structures such as wind turbine blades, circular overhead power line conductors and building’s air intake louvers. Numerical results of this research work are compared with the experimental data to validate and a good agreement is found.