Abstract

Every winter in Canada, ice formation affects airplanes, power lines, telecommunications equipment, windmills, ships and rail transport. Icing in aeronautics augment significant human and monetary costs. From the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Accident Database, during a 19-year period 583 accidents and more than 800 fatalities were caused by airframe icing accidents. Ice accumulation on aerostructures causes a variety of issues — loss of lift, increase in drag, jamming of control surfaces or of mechanical parts, damage of engine blades. Thus, aircraft icing affects the safety of flight and increases fuel consumption. Engineers have developed various techniques for anti-\ and de-icing areas for components of an aircraft that are affected. In laboratory settings, these technologies show promising results. However, they are designed and tested under ‘‘ideal’’ conditions and consequently they often underperform in practical applications. Not all of the technologies make it beyond the conceptual phase, which is also due to the fact that the processes of ice accretion and ice adhesion are not fully understood yet.
The purpose of this thesis is to study the available ice adhesion tests in order to select and develop an easy to use and reproducible testing tool for measuring ice adhesion. The Mode I or tensile was chosen because the analysis of the results is well understood, the test is fully controlled and it can be easily reproduced. Test results will simulate real, in-flight icing conditions. Mode I applies tensile loading at the ice-substrate interface. The CRT icing wind tunnel has the capability of investigating the ice adhesion with a bending cantilever test that measures the ice-substrate interfacial strength based on harmonic excitation with a permanent magnet shaker. This proposed study will help researchers and engineers to develop reliable systems by correlating the complementary ice adhesion results obtained from the Mode I and the bending cantilever tests. The intention is to minimize the risk of failures when conducting full-scale or flight testing. The prevention of ice build-up on aircraft structures or its easy removal will reduce safety hazards, in addition to leading to considerable savings, both financial and environmental. Further advancement in the technology of ice protection systems will contribute to retaining Canada’s position as the leading authority of aerospace, green energy production, and consumer products.