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In-flight icing significantly influences the design of large passenger aircraft. Relevant aspects include sizing of the main aerodynamic surfaces, provision of anti-icing systems, and setting of operational restrictions. Empennages of large passenger aircraft are particularly affected due to the small leading edge radius, and the requirement to generate considerable lift for round out and flare, following an extended period of descent often in icing conditions. This paper describes a CFD-based investigation of the effects of sweep on the aerodynamic performance of a novel forward-swept horizontal stabilizer concept in icing conditions. The concept features an unconventional forward sweep, combined with a high lift leading edge extension (LEX) located within a fuselage induced droplet shadow zone, providing passive protection from icing.

This paper introduces the Lagrangian particle tracking technology readily available in Ansys Fluent in the in-flight icing simulation workflow, which normally uses the Eulerian approach for droplet flows. The Lagrangian solver is incorporated in the Fluent Icing workspace which is to become the next-gen in-flight icing simulation tool provided by Ansys. Lagrangian tracking will eventually be used for SLD and ice crystal rebound and re-impingement calculations in the Ansys workflow. Here we introduce some preliminary results with the current state of its implementation as of Fluent Icing release 2023R2. Example cases include several selections from the 1st Ice prediction workshop with experimental comparisons as well as results obtained earlier with the Eulerian droplet solution strategy. Collection efficiency comparisons on clean geometries show good agreement between Eulerian and Lagrangian methods when the particle seeds are in the millions range.

This paper studies the level of confidence and applicability of CFD simulations using steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) in predicting aerodynamic performance losses on swept-wings due to contamination with ice accreted in-flight. The wing geometry selected for the study is the 65%-scale Common Research Model (CRM65) main wing, for which NASA Glenn Research Center’s Icing Research Tunnel has generated experimental ice shapes for the inboard, mid-span, and outboard sections. The reproductions at various levels of fidelity from detailed 3D scans of these ice shapes have been used in recent aerodynamic testing at the Office National d’Etudes et Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) and Wichita State University (WSU) wind tunnels. The ONERA tests were at higher Reynolds number range in the order of 10 million, while the WSU tests were in the order of 1 million.