Experimental Determination of the Droplet Impingement on a Propeller Using a Modified Dye-Tracer Technique
By: Jonathan D. Reichhold
Adviser: Dr. Michael B. Bragg
M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996
ABSTRACT
Design of the de- or anti-icing systems which protect aircraft from
dangerous levels of ice formation requires the knowledge of the water
droplet impingement on the aircraft. This information, which is
frequently determined computationally, includes the energy required per
unit area and portion of the aircraft to be protected. The computational
methods currently in use were validated using the NACA dye-tracer method
for droplet impingement measurement. In order to decrease the cost and
complexity of the droplet impingement tests, this thesis documents a new
method for the data reduction which uses a digital camera and image
analysis to determine the impingement information. The improved method
was used to determine the impingement information for a propeller
configuration. Droplet impingement information, to the author's
knowledge, had not been measured on a propeller prior to this study.
During the test it was found that he propeller, due to its rotation, swept
through a significant amount of water. This rotational effect created
droplet impingement efficiency values significantly greater than one for a
large proportion of the propeller blades. This result is explained with a
simple analysis using blade element theory. In addition, the propeller
impingement with variations in both nacelle and number of propeller blades
was studied. Droplet impingement results on a two-dimensional airfoil and
a calibration of the test section spray cloud are also presented.