Quantification of Wind-Driven Surface Water Transport Process for Aircraft Icing Studies

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PI: Hu, HuiProposal Number: 1435590The proposed research will explore in detail the conditions that lead to icing on aircraft wings. The flow of water, ice and air around the wings of an airplane will be observed with an experimental technique that will be developed as part of this proposal. The experimental facility is rather unique for a US academic institution. In addition to fundamental knowledge on the process of icing, understanding and predicting this process can lead to both safer and cheaper operation of aircrafts. Connections to local science and math teachers and outreach activities for K-12 schools are also proposed. The PI proposes to develop a new aircraft icing and demo experimental module that would be used in outreach activities to attract young students to engineering and science.The goal of the PI is to develop a novel technique to quantify the unsteady surface water transport process driven by boundary layer airflows over ice accreting airfoil/wing surfaces leading to safer and more efficient operation of aircrafts in icing conditions. This new experimental technique (Digital Image Projection Sensing, DIPS) is based on structured light triangulation, which is similar to stereovision techniques that provide 3D images, but it involves replacing one of the cameras for stereo imaging with a digital projector. If successful, the proposed DIPS technique will be a non-intrusive technique capable of achieving instantaneous measurements of thickness distributions of surface water droplet/rivulet flows (i.e., unsteady surf ace water transport process) over ice accreting airfoil/wing surfaces. This will provide the foundation to address challenging problems involving multiphase flow interactions with solidification. The effects of the surface properties (e.g., hydrophobicity and thermal conductivity) of aircraft wings on the surface water transport and ice formation will be studied in detail.