Thermal Analysis and Testing of a Cone with Leading Edge Hot Air Anti-icing System

Abstract

Ice accretion on the aero-engine cone may seriously change the characteristics of the inlet flow field and cause the engine performance degradation. In addition, shedding ice may be sucked into the engine and induces serious damage. In order to reduce the hazards caused by in-flight icing, the hot air anti-icing systems is widely used for its effectiveness and reliability. This paper presents an experimental and a computational study on the performance of hot air anti-icing system of aero-engine cone. Experiments are conducted under different icing conditions and at different hot air parameters in YBF-02 icing wind tunnel. The experimental model is a full-scale cone of a small aero-engine. The hot air flows through the internal narrow gap of the cone and heats the cone to prevent the surface from ice accretion. In experiments, the hot air is heated by an electric heater. The temperature distributions on the cone surface are measured by thermocouples. Numerical computation of the temperature distribution of a cone under icing condition is also presented. The flow field around the cone is obtained by using CFD software. The trajectories of supercooled water droplets and the collection-efficiency are calculated by Lagrangian approach. The coupling effects of heat transfer and mass transfer are considered in the temperature computation of the cone. The thermal analysis model considers the mass balance of water and energy balance on the surface of the cone. The comparison between the computation results and the experiment results is given.