Next generation anti icing technologies - addressing a quintessential Canadian problem

在较冷的气候中建造的基础设施注定要经历与冰冻或冰点以下的温度一致的压力。这些条件带来了更高的维护成本和有限的寿命，在生产设施(如石油和天然气钻井平台、管道或风力涡轮机)的情况下，收入损失基本上是肯定的。持续的结冰加剧了基础设施的停机时间、工人的健康和安全，并最终加剧了经济损失，而这个问题在较冷的气候中无处不在，这并不令人惊讶。目前用于清除/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，因为实施它们所需的能源。市场上没有明显的新的或新兴的无源技术。防冰涂层将会带来实质性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%的电力来自非排放来源，毫无疑问，风力涡轮机行业将在未来5至10年内继续扩张。然而，由于与冰有关的问题，风力涡轮机行业遭受了相当长的停机时间。在此背景下，这项关于合作研究和开发基金的提议旨在应用一种全新的创新方式来调查和潜在地补救风力涡轮机行业内的结冰问题。鉴于我们在应用创新材料和测量技术方面的新方法的多功能性，预计在这一领域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，并将使加拿大处于冰冷技术的领先地位，我们预计这种技术将在全球范围内采用。

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.