Aerodynamics of Ice Remnants from Protected Surfaces
Andy P. Broeren, and Michael B. Bragg
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a compilation of aerodynamic data for
airfoils with ice remnants. Ice remnants is defined as ice accretion
associated with the operation of ice-protection systems. Changes in drag and
maximum lift coefficient are summarized for many different cases. It was found
that there is a lack of data for residual ice simulations on airfoils, where the
leading edge and stagnation region is free of ice roughness. In contrast, there
are numerous studies detailing the aerodynamic effects of intercycle ice. In the
case of spanwise ridge ice resulting from heated leading-edge ice-protection
systems (runback ice) or SLD accretions, there is also a lack of data for real
ice accretion or high-fidelity simulations on airfoils. The existing data
indicate that uniform, or standard roughness such as sandpaper that is applied
over the leading-edge and stagnation point region may be an adequate
representation of residual ice, but is likely too conservative in terms of
maximum lift penalty. For some intercycle accretions, like those resulting from
one-minute deicer cycles, the lift and drag penalties could be adequately
simulated with uniform roughness. As the deicer cycle time increases from one to
three minutes, intercycle ice shapes develop larger features that lead to more
significant separated flow areas and larger performance penalties. Some may have
characteristics of spanwise-ridge ice that are often simulated with simple
geometric shapes. These results show a very large range of performance
characteristics from increases in maximum lift to very large decreases in
maximum lift. It is difficult to evaluate some of these results because the
simple geometries used to represent the ice ridges do not capture the
complexities of the actual ice accretion. More data are needed to better
understand the flowfield physics.