An Experimental Study to Evaluate Hydro-/Ice-Phobic Coatings for Icing Mitigation over Rotating Aero-engine Fan Blades 2019-01-1980

Ice accretion on aero-engines, especially on the fan blades, is the most 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 pre-scribed speed was also measured during the ice accretion experiment. It was found that, super-hydrophobic surface (SHS) coated blades was found to have much less ice accretion area, in comparison with the uncoated fan blades, under both glaze icing and rime icing conditions. Meanwhile, under the glaze icing condition, SHS reduced the ice adhesion strength and the ice structures accreted neat the leading edges of fan blades easily shed before the formation of dangerous large ice chucks. Ice accretion on fan blades was also found to result in the degradation of the engine performance as the required power input to drive the engine fan model increased significantly as the ice accreting on the fan blades