Next generation anti icing technologies - addressing a quintessential Canadian problem

在寒冷气候中建造的基础设施注定要经历与冻结或低于冻结温度一致的应力。这些条件造成更高的维护成本、有限的使用寿命，在生产设施（例如石油和天然气钻井平台、管道或风力涡轮机）的情况下，基本上肯定会造成收入损失。持续的积冰加剧了基础设施的停机时间，工人的健康和安全，最终导致经济损失，毫不奇怪，这个问题在寒冷的气候中无处不在。目前用于去除/防止结冰的唯一有效方法是主动技术，例如基础设施的电阻加热或振动。这些都不是可持续的除冰方法，因为实施它们需要能源。市场上没有明显的新的或新兴的无源技术。 防冰涂层将带来巨大好处的一个关键行业是风力涡轮机市场（相关行业：航空航天）。鉴于联邦政府的目标是到2020年，加拿大90%的电力来自非排放源，毫无疑问，风力涡轮机行业将在未来5至10年内持续扩张。然而，风力涡轮机工业由于冰相关的问题而遭受大量停机时间。在这种情况下，这一合作研究和发展赠款的建议旨在采用一种全新的和创新的方式来调查和潜在的补救风力涡轮机行业内的积冰问题。鉴于我们的新方法在应用创新材料和测量技术方面的多功能性，预计在这一竞技场中取得的任何进展都可以扩展到其他具有经济利益的领域。这项技术的广泛采用将为加拿大人在材料和制造业创造就业机会，并将使加拿大处于恐冰技术的领先地位，我们预计该技术将在全球范围内得到采用。

Infrastructure constructed in colder climates is destined to experience stresses consistent with freezing or below freezing temperatures. These conditions impose higher maintenance costs, limited lifetimes and in the case of production facilities (e.g. oil and gas rigs, pipelines or wind turbines) revenue loss is essentially assured. Continued ice build up exacerbates infrastructure downtime, worker health and safety and ultimately economic loss and this problem is, not surprisingly, ubiquitous to colder climates. The only effective methods currently employed for removing/preventing ice build up are active technologies such as resistive heating or vibration of the infrastructure. These are not sustainable deicing methods because of the energy required to implement them. There are no apparent new or emerging passive technologies on or coming to the market. A key industry where anti-ice coatings would serve as a substantial benefit is in the wind turbine market (related industry: Aerospace). Given that the Federal Government has a target to generate 90% of Canada's electricity from non emitting sources by 2020, without a doubt, the wind turbine industry will witness continued expansion over the next 5 to 10 years. However, the wind turbine industry suffers substantial down time because of ice related problems. In this context, this proposal for a Collaborative Research and Development Grant aims to apply a wholly new and innovative way to investigate and potentially remedy the ice accumulation problems within the wind turbine industry. Given the versatility of our new approach to both the application of innovative materials and measurement techniques, it is expected that any progress achieved in this arena could be extended to other areas of economic interest. The wide adoption of this technology will generate employment for Canadians in the materials and manufacturing sectors, and will put Canada at the leading edge of icephobic technology, which we would expect to be adopted globally.