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The electro-thermal method is most commonly used for wind turbine anti-/de-icing. The upmost drawback of such systems is the high power consumption. In the present study, we proposed to use a durable slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS) to effectively reduce the power requirement of the heating element during the anti-/de-icing process. The explorative study was conducted in the Icing Research Tunnel at Iowa State University (ISU-IRT) with a DU91-W2-250 wind turbine blade model exposed under severe icing conditions. During the experiments, while a high-speed imaging system was used to record the dynamic ice accretion process, an infrared (IR) thermal imaging system was also utilized to achieve the simultaneous surface temperature measurements over the test model.

Ice accretion on aero-engines, especially on the fan blades, is the very hazardous icing incident due to the potential performance degradation of jet-engines. In the present study, an experimental investigation was conducted to examine the performance of ice-phobic coatings for jet-engine fan icing mitigation. The experimental study was performed in the unique Icing Research Tunnel at Iowa State University (ISU-IRT) with a scaled engine fan model operated under wet glaze and dry rime ice conditions. To evaluate the effects of anti-icing coatings and to acquire the important details of ice accretion and shedding process on fan blade surfaces, a “phase-locked” imaging technique was applied with a high-resolution imaging system. The power input required to drive the engine fan model rotating at a constant prescribed speed was also measured during the ice accretion experiment.