Development and Theoretical Analysis of an Aircraft Supercooled Icing Model

Abstract

In the last two decades, the phenomena of rapid ice growth and severe runback were found in several serious aircraft-icing crashes, which were believed by many researchers to be due to the supercooled-large-droplet environment. However, the mechanism of the phenomena was not well acknowledged from the conclusion of the icing researches. The dendritic ice growth is thought to greatly influence the ice-growth velocity, and is rarely mentioned in aircraft-icing researches. In this paper, an aircraft supercooled icing model for ice-shape simulation is developed, based on the properties of dendritic ice growth in supercooled water. And the potential consequence of dendritic ice growth to ice-accretion rate on aircraft is discussed theoretically. The supercooled icing model is compared with the Messinger model through the analysis of icing film and the ice-shape simulation. It concludes that the supercooled icing model can well predict the ice-accretion rate, the ice shape, and the surface temperature. Compared with the Messinger model, the supercooled icing model has obvious advantages in predicting rapid ice growth and severe runback phenomena. Further investigations based on the supercooled-water physical features on aircraft will shed more light on the icing mechanism.