Prediction of Ice Accretion Shapes on Aircraft Wings Using Open-Source Software

Abstract

Ice accretion on aircraft components starts when an aircraft flies through atmospheric clouds containing supercooled liquid droplets, which have a temperature below freezing point but are still in a liquid state. Ice accretion occurs when water droplets impinge and freeze on the unprotected frontal regions of aircraft surfaces. The accumulated ice on aircraft components degrades the aircraft performance and causes serious flight problems. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics package is developed using open-source software. The created package is used to predict rime and glaze ice shapes on a wing airfoil for different icing condition cases. The results show a satisfactory agreement in ice shape prediction obtained using the OpenFOAM and Octave software with the corresponding data in the literature © 2006-2021 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.