In-flight icing prediction with high speed flow effects

Abstract

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

In the current study, continued efforts to improve a computational in-flight icing prediction tool are introduced. The method involves flow-field calculation around an airfoil using the Hess-Smith panel method, droplet trajectory determination and calculation of droplet collection efficiencies. Next step is to compute convective heat transfer coefficient distribution over the geometry. Computation of the ice accretion rates by establishing a thermodynamical balance and utilization of the Extended Messinger Method forms the focus of the developed computational tool. Finally, integration of ice accretion rates over time yields the ice shapes and the final geometry. Compressibility is accounted for in the droplet trajectory calculations and the thermodynamical model. Three test cases corresponding to different levels of compressibility have been studied and the results have been compared with numerical and experimental data available in the literature. The results show that compressibility is a prominent effect and influences both the ice mass and the extent of the iced region in the predictions.