Numerical simulation of an airfoil electrothermal anti-icing system

Abstract

The mathematical models and a numerical code for numerical simulation of a thermal anti-icing system are presented in this article. Mass conservation is applied to the runback water flow. An energy balance is imposed on the airfoil skin including the water flow. The heat transfer coefficient distributions are obtained using the boundary layer integral method. The external flowfield and the local water collection efficiency data are predicted using an Eulerian method, based on a computation fluid dynamic code and its user-defined functions. Given the input of the electrical power density distribution, the numerical code is able to calculate airfoil equilibrium surface temperature, mass flux of runback water, runback ice mass flux, and range if happens. A user interface is developed to integrate the computation fluid dynamic code to achieve a method for the analysis of a thermal anti-icing system. All the numerical results are compared with both experimental data and other numerical results presented in the literature.