Deicing of a GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum laminate – Part 2: Influence of substrate curvature

Abstract

This two part study investigated the deicing performance of a GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum laminate and the influence of its surface curvature on the ice-to-water phase change. Part-1 of this study described the numerical model and the experiments conducted to validate the numerical model. In companion, Part-2 focused on interrogating the influence of substrate curvature on the phase transition based on a numerical model, in which an ice-to-water phase change method in a Lagrangian numerical framework predicted the deicing of a rectangular flat- and a curved GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum 5A-3/2 laminate embedded with a recurring S-shaped copper-mesh. As seen, deicing of the rectangular flat GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum 5A-3/2 model demanded a surface power density of 14.62 kW/m2 at an ambient temperature of 267.15 K. The numerically predicted deicing time, surface power density and deicing temperature of the rectangular flat GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum model were in excellent agreement with that of the rectangular flat GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum specimen of the experiment. Using the identical surface power density and power pulse duration, the curved GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum model required a deicing time 9 s shorter than that needed by the rectangular flat GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum model. After the melting of the entire ice-aluminum interface, temperature of the curved GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum model exhibited a steep increase and surpassed the temperature of the rectangular flat counterpart. A higher temperature of GLAss fiber REinforced aluminum is appreciated for efficient deicing, if the cyclic change of temperature does not induce thermal fatigue.