The problem of aircraft icing is one of the major challenges in the aerospace industry. It occurs when supercooled water droplets impinge on fuselage parts, blades, engine parts and other aircraft surfaces during flight. As a result, the ice formed changes the aircraft surface structure, thus reducing the wing aerodynamics and increasing fuel consumption. A clear understanding of this process will help, for example, to create advanced icing-resistant composite materials for aviation.
Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University and their colleagues from Novosibirsk Institute of Thermophysics will run a project aimed at experimental and numerical study of the liquid droplet impingement on solid surfaces with controlled characteristics on micro- and nanoscale. The novelty of the study lies in the description of water droplet behavior on surfaces of various wettability, which affects their icing.In the joint project, the TPU research team will conduct experiments and take part in numerical modeling of the processes under study. They also plan to design an experimental bench to simulate real droplet collision with the wall at high velocities. Scientists from the Institute of Thermophysics, on their part, are responsible for mathematical modeling of processes based on experimental data, and they will take part in collecting them. High-resolution numerical calculations will be performed at the Cascade supercomputing cluster in Novosibirsk.The study will cover a variety of liquid droplet sizes, ranging from the micrometer to millimeter, as well as high droplet-to-wall impingement velocities, above 10 meters per second. The liquid temperatures will also vary over wide ranges, mostly below normal conditions. It will help to predict the droplet-surface interaction process during aircraft operation at different altitudes. In addition, various surface characteristics that also have a great impact on the interaction process will be considered: wettability (homogeneous and heterogeneous), liquid penetration into structured and unstructured surfaces, micro- and nanoscale roughness, and others. Another variable parameter to study is the variation of the target surface inclination angle and, consequently, the study of droplet behavior in this setting,
The team encourages young researchers to join the project. These can be postgraduate students studying Mechanics of Fluid, Gas and Plasma and Thermal Physics and Theory of Heat Engineering, master's students of the TPU School of Energy and Power Engineering, as well as from other academic institutions of Tomsk. We are also searching for a young researcher who possesses or is currently gaining competencies in materials science, composite materials, and solid surface characterization to join the team. If you are interested, please contact Maxim Piskunov via e-mail: piskunovmv@tpu.ru.Aerospace is not the only industry facing the icing challenge. The project results can potentially improve the equipment performance in a number of industries. For instance, the solution of similar problems is of great importance in the energy industry, namely icing prevention on the blades of wind turbines and power transmission lines,
For a brief overview of the project supported by the Russian Science Foundation, please click here.