Icing

Abstract: Ice formation and accretion may hinder the operation of many systems critical to national infrastructure, including airplanes, power lines, windmills, ships, and telecommunications equipment. Yet despite the pervasiveness of the icing problem, the fundamentals of ice adhesion have received relatively little attention in the scientific literature and it is not widely understood which attributes must be tuned to systematically design “icephobic” surfaces that are resistant to icing. Here we probe the relationships between advancing/receding water contact angles and the strength of ice adhesion to bare steel and twenty-one different test coatings (∼200−300 nm thick) applied to the nominally smooth steel discs. Contact angles are measured using a commercially available goniometer, whereas the average strengths of ice adhesion are evaluated with a custom-built laboratory-scale adhesion apparatus. The coatings investigated comprise commercially available polymers and fluorinated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquio...

Abstract: The thermal analysis of a heated surface in icing conditions has been extensively treated in the literature. Except for the work of Tribus, however, little has been done on the analysis of an unheated icing surface. This latter analysis is significant in the design of cyclic thermal deicing systems that are attractive for small high-speed aircraft for which thermal anti-icing requirements have become severe. In this paper, a complete analysis of the temperature of an unheated surface in icing conditions is presented for the several significant regimes (i.e., less than 32°F., at 32°F., and above 32°F.) as a function of air speed, altitude, ambient temperature, and liquid water content. The results are presented in graphical form and permit the rapid determination of surface temperature for a wide range of variables. Curves are presented to determine the speeds beyond which no ice accretion will occur. Curves are also presented to indicate the surface temperature and the rate of ice sublimation which takes place when an ice-covered surface emerges into clear air. One significant result of this study is the introduction of a new basic variable referred to as the "freezing-fraction," which denotes the proportion of the impinging liquid which freezes in the impingement region. The fact that some of the liquid does not freeze in the impingement region tends to explain the observed variation in ice formation shape with temperature, speed, and water catch. New test data obtained at Mt. Washington, N.H., for stagnation-point surface temperatures of an unheated plastic cylinder in natural and artificial icing conditions are included in the Appendix. These data substantiate the validity of the assumptions made in the theoretical analysis.

Abstract: Expansion of wind energy installed capacity is poised to play a key role in climate change mitigation. However, wind energy is also susceptible to global climate change. Some changes associated with climate evolution will likely benefit the wind energy industry while other changes may negatively impact wind energy developments, with such ‘gains and losses’ depending on the region under consideration. Herein we review possible mechanisms by which global climate variability and change may influence the wind energy resource and operating conditions, summarize some of the tools that are being employed to quantify these effects and the sources of uncertainty in making such projections, and discuss results of studies conducted to date. We present illustrative examples of research from northern Europe. Climate change analyses conducted for this region, which has shown considerable penetration of wind energy, imply that in the near-term (i.e. to the middle of the current century) natural variability exceeds the climate change signal in the wind energy resource and extreme wind speeds, but there will likely be a decline in icing frequency and sea ice both of which will tend to benefit the wind energy industry. By the end of the twenty-first century there is evidence for small magnitude changes in the wind resource (though the sign of the change remains uncertain), for increases in extreme wind speeds, and continued declines in sea ice and icing frequencies. Thus the current state-of-the-art suggests no detectable change in the wind resource or other external conditions that could jeopardize the continued exploitation of wind energy in northern Europe, though further research is needed to provide greater confidence in these projections.