Characteristics of SLD Ice Accretions on Airfoils and Their Aerodynamic Effects
Andy P. Broeren, Christopher M. LaMarre and Michael B. Bragg
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801
and
Sam Lee
NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, OH
ABSTRACT
Recent aircraft accidents and incidents in Super-cooled, Large Droplet (SLD) conditions
has led to the development of a technology roadmap designed to improve the capabilities of
SLD engineering tools. Research is required to evaluate and enhance the capabilities of icing
test facilities and analytical codes for SLD applications. In support of this effort, the
objectives of this study were to identify and document key features of SLD ice accretions on
unprotected surfaces and determine their aerodynamic effects. Icing experiments were
carried out on a full-scale wing section from a commuter class aircraft. Three key features
were determined from the resulting ice accretions: horns, nodules and clear ice. All of the
documented ice accretions contained either two or three of these features. Follow-on
aerodynamic testing was carried out on a sub-scale model having the same airfoil as the icing
model. The ice features were scaled in size by the ratio of the model chord lengths and were
simulated with simple geometric materials. Aerodynamic performance measurements were
performed at Re = 1.8×106 and Ma = 0.18 with various combinations of the ice feature
simulations applied to the model. The largest performance degradations occurred for SLD
accretions having horn features. The relative size of the clear ice region upstream of the
horn played an important role in the resulting penalties, while the nodule features
downstream of the horn did not. SLD accretion simulations without horns had less of an
aerodynamic penalty. The nodule size, spacing and chordwise extent and clear ice thickness
and chordwise extent were important factors in the resulting performance.