Rapid Assessment of Power Requirements and Optimization of Thermal Ice Protection Systems

Abstract

A thermal ice protection system prevents or dispatches ice formed on critical aircraft components like wings or nacelles by heating them either through electro-thermal or pneumatic means. The power requirements for such a system are a function of flight and atmospheric conditions and protected surface area. The developed analysis framework allows evaluation of transient and steady-state cases, anti-icing and de-icing designs, as well as evaporative and running-wet operation. To enable these analyses, a flow solver is first used to calculate local water catch efficiencies and convective heat transfer coefficients on an airfoil. These are then used within a thermal solver which evaluates water and ice accumulations over multiple control volumes under different cases of interest. This control volume approach includes both thermal and mass balances to track temperatures of the protected surface, ice, and water, as well as water/ice layer thicknesses and the water mass flow in or out of the control volume through evaporation or runback. Finally, this tool can yield power requirements for different system layouts and operating conditions, or optimize the protected surface area for a given airfoil under given operating conditions. This can help designers get an estimate of the power draw, and obtain more information on placement of the IPS on novel configurations during the design space exploration phase itself with greater fidelity and minimal computational costs.