Technical Paper
An Experimental Study to Evaluate Hydro-/Ice-Phobic Coatings for Icing Mitigation over Rotating Aero-engine Fan Blades
2019-06-10
2019-01-1980
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. ...It was found that both super-hydrophobic surface (SHS) and ice-phobic coating have its advantage in engine anti-icing. SHS facilitated the blades surface with much less ice, under both glaze icing and rime icing conditions, while ice-phobic coating prevents the large ice chunk formed in the leading edge as the ice chunk easily shed from the leading edge, compared with SHS blade and blades with a hydrophilic coating.