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Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676

“APISAT2014”, 2014 Asia-Pacific International Symposium on Aerospace Technology,

APISAT2014

Study on the Heat Transfer Characteristics in aircraft icing

Zhi-Hong Zhou*,Xian Yi ,Ye-Wei Gui, Yan-Xia du
State Key Laboratory of Aerodynamics, Aerodynamics Research and Development Center , Mianyang, 621000 , China

Abstract

Investigation on the heat transfer mechanisms of liquid and solid is important to predicting the icing process. Messige model is a
typical model for the process of mass and heat transfer, but the effect of surface tension of water droplet is been ignored in the
model. We established a model which was add the infection of surface energy based on traditional thermodynamic model. Some
cases at NACA0012 are simulated with our model in order to verify its correctness. The calculated results show that, our model
was consistent with the traditional thermodynamic model in Low temperature, but our model have better results in high
temperatures
© 2014The
© 2015 TheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd.is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Ltd. This
Peer-review under responsibility of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA).
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA)
Keywords: Ice, Thermodynamic model, supercooled droplets , surface energy.

1. Introduction

Aircraft often fly under subfreezing temperaturesif encounter cloud containing supercooled dropletsand
supercooled droplets of cloud impact on the planeice accretion phenomenon will occurIce accretion and its
subsequent build-up is one of the potential hazards in airplane flight, which lead to deterioration of aircraft
aerodynamics performance. Prediction of ice accretion is thus an important part of airplane design[1].
We know that, depending on the structure of ice and the physical changes that occur in the process of freezing,
ice on the aircraft surface is usually divided into three types: rime ice, glaze ice and mixed ice.
Icing on the wing of aircraft will have a significant influence on the safety of the aircraft. For example, it will
lead to decreasing of the lift coefficient and increasing of the drag coefficient. Since the shape of glaze ice is

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-13772544968; fax: +86-081-62345623.

E-mail address: zhouzhihong029@163.com

1877-7058 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA)
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2014.12.588
672 Zhi-Hong Zhou et al. / Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676

irregular, and it is widely distributed along the surface of the wing chord, and there have no air bubbles in the glaze
ice, therefore it is transparent and dense. It is difficult to separate from the ice surface. It has the most serious
damage on aerodynamics, and will significantly affect flight safety. It is necessary to research priorities.
Investigation on the heat transfer characteristics of ice growth on aircraft surfaces is the premise and foundation
for studying the icing mechanisms and anti-icing or deicing techniques. During the icing process, the accretion rate
and ice type depend not only on the airflow parameters but also on the inner heat transfer characteristics.
Investigation on the heat transfer mechanisms of liquid and solid is therefore important to predicting the icing
process.
A number of works have studied the influence of the mass and heat transfer on ice growth, some thermodynamic
models is established, Messige model is a typical one. 1953, Messiger analysis of aircraft surface heat and mass
transfer processes, established a thermodynamic model freezing process based on view of the energy and mass
balance. This model is the foundation of research on heat and mass transfer characteristics of aircraft icing, until
now it has been widely adopted. Research of the heat transfer in aircraft icing process are essentially based on the
Messiger model or models with a certain degree of modification. Although Messiger model and improved models
are widely used in icing research of aircraft, however, these models describe the actual physical process of freezing
is still not accurate enough. There are still some limitations in the simulation of graze ice and other complex types
with numerical simulation methods based on Messiger model. The effect of surface tension of water droplet is been
ignored in those works, researchers had thought that all of the supercooled water droplet’s kinetic energy translate
into heat energy while it hit the surface of the object. This assumption ignores the effects of approximate surface
tension of water droplets. We found that, not all of its kinetic energy is converted into heat when the drop impact on
the airplane, most of the energy will be converted into water droplets shape changes of increased surface energy.
The surface energy of the surface tension caused by changes of the shape of drops have the same order of magnitude
with the droplet kinetic energy. This energy can not be ignored during icing simulation.
In order to accurately predict the growth pattern of ice formation and to flow under different weather conditions
and to adapt to different requirements forecast icing conditions, the paper surface tension effects into account,
establish a more general freezing heat transfer model, and uses the model analyzes the influencing factors and the
role of the law of aircraft icing during the ice growth.

2. Method of aircraft icing calculation

Aircraft icing is an unsteady process, the freezing process is usually treated as a number of quasi-steady process
in the actual calculation process. Every quasi-steady process is usually carried out with three steps. First, solve the
basic equations of air flow field to get air flow field flow around the aircraft. Then, solving equations of motion of
water droplets to get collection efficiency based on the results of air flow field. Finally, consider freezing by solving
the phase change heat transfer model to determine the aircraft icing.

2.1. Calculation method for flowfield

Numerical simulations using the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are conducted to calculate the air
flow field. Our numerical approach to solve the NS equations is based on the finite volume form of the integral
equations. The equations are the expression of the conservation principle for mass, momentum and energy. In a
domain of volume Ω with boundary S, the equations may be written in the following form:
∂
1
∫
∂t Ω
UΩ + ∫ F ⋅ S =
Re
∫ FV ⋅ 
(1)
S S

As used for the present computations, the cell-centered finite volume methods are employed to solve the Navier-
Stockes equations. The flux-vector splitting (FVS) method of van Leer is implemented as Reference 2. A time-
accurate, fully implicit method based on LU-SGS has been used to solve the viscous flow problems. At the wall
surface boundary the immovability boundary condition is applied, i.e., the wall velocity is zero. At the far-field
boundary some special boundary conditions must be imposed. The viscosity coefficient computed as the sum of
 Zhi-Hong Zhou et al. / Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676 673

laminar and turbulent viscosity coefficients, which are evaluated by the Sutherland’s law. The Spalart-Allmaras
model is implemented to handle turbulence flows.

2.2. Calculation method for droplet collection efficiency

The collection efficiency on the structure surface is computed based on the distribution of air field with an
Eulerian methodThe governing equations of the water phase are composed of continuum and momentum
equations[3,4]shown as:
∂(ρ dα )

+ ∇ ⋅ (ρ dα ud ) = 0 2
∂t


∂(ρ dα ud )





+ ∇ ⋅ (ρ dα ud ud ) = ρ dα K(ua − ud ) + ρ dα g 3
∂t
Where
is the droplet volume fractionand
the called inertia factorEq(2) is called continuum equation
and Eq(3) is called momentum equationIn order to obtain water collection efficiency and impingement
characteristicsthe same numerical method with air field calculation is used to discrete and solve Eq(2) and
Eq(3)The droplet volume fraction
can be obtained after the equation is solvedThe droplet collection
efficiencywhich shows the distribution of liquid water on structure surfacecan be calculated as



 
  (4)





Where
and
are the droplet volume fraction and air velocity of far fieldand
is the unit vector
normal to body surface

2.3. Thermodynamic model

Based on the results of water droplets collection rate ,we can calculate the icing on the plane with the opinion of
mass balance and energy balance[5].
(1) Mass balance equations

  


 (5)


The mass flow go into the control volume contains the following sections: is the water flow which is not

freezes from upstream of the control body,
 is supercooled droplets impact on the airplane; the mass flow out of

control bodies contains the following sections: 
is the amount of water change to steam by evaporation or



sublimation, is the mass which is not freezes and flow into downstream,  is the water mass which was
change to ice.
(2) Energy balance equation
Q1 − Q2 + Q3 − Q4 − Q5 + Q6 = 0 (6)
Messinger model set the surface of the infinitesimal control volume on anti-icing components under the quasi-
steady conditions as research subjects, , according to the first law of thermodynamics to establish thermal
equilibrium equation for each component surface heat flow items. Messinger considered infinitesimal surface heat


flux are the following items:
is the convective hot flow of wall and the environment; Aerodynamic heating heat




flow; is the heat of the wall heat flux aerodynamic heating;
is the heat of evaporation of water droplets or ice






surface; is the energy of droplets into the body; is the impact kinetic energy into the water heat flux;
is
the phase change heat flow during freezing.
674 Zhi-Hong Zhou et al. / Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676

3. The improved thermodynamic model

3.1. The influence of roughness

Thermodynamic model is the key of the ice type simulation, and solving of the surface and air convection heat
transfer coefficient is very important to the ice simulation accuracy. The surface will become rough while aircraft
surfaces is icing, Flow transition forward position by the disturbance tissue of rough surface to the air flow. This will
enhance convection heat transfer of the surface and the surrounding air. Currently, the mechanism of roughness
generated still in the research stage, the general study of empirical formula. We learn from Glenn Research Center
icing software LEWICE approach, according to the experimental data fit the empirical formula, used to calculate the
equivalent sand surface roughness height to measure the roughness of the ice surface[6].
ks k /c k /c k /c k
=[ s ]MVD ⋅[ s ]LWC ⋅[ s ]T∞ ⋅[ s ]base 7
0.6839c ks / cbase ks / cbase ks / cbase c

3.2. The influence of surface energy

The icing process is closely related to the impact of water droplets. Spread,stick, rebound and splash phenomena
is happened in droplet impact process. The process is influenced by many factors, such as the inertial force, capillary
forces, viscous forces, surface tension, surface properties of solid and so on. The great mass of kinetic energy is
converted into surface energy when the droplet impact on the surface of the airplane, and part of the energy translate
into heat energy. The surface energy and water droplet’s kinetic energy within the same order of magnitude. There
are a part of the energy dissipated by the flow of a viscous liquid, called the viscous dissipation of energy, this
energy is converted into heat.
The thermal energy conversion by viscous dissipation is[7]:
tc
W1 = ∫ ∫ φdΩdt ≈ φΩtc (8)
0 Ω

And
is the function of viscous dissipation

∂v ∂v ∂v V
φ = μ ( i + j ) i ≈ μ ( 0 )2 (9)
∂x j ∂xi ∂x j δ0
When we add in the improved thermodynamic model of the effects of surface energy, the study found that when
added icing simulation, better type of consistent ice surface can affect the thermodynamic model, the closer zero
degrees Celsius, the effect is more obvious.

4. The calculation examples

(1) The calculation of heat transfer coefficient

We simulated the convective heat transfer coefficient with NACA0012 airfoil surface. Case: V=130m/s,
P=90748Pa. T=-12 C,L=0.3m,MVD=20m,LWC=0.5g/m3,
=0 and 4 . Our calculated results compared with
the results calculated LEWICE were shown as the Figure 1 (a) and (b). The minimum, maximum, and the trend
curve are good agree with the result of LEWICE, it indicating that the method we used in this article is correct.
 Zhi-Hong Zhou et al. / Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676 675

(a)
=0 (b)
=4

Fig 1 The calculation of heat transfer coefficient

(2) The influence of surface energy

We simulated ice shape on NACA0012 airfoil surface. Case: V=130m/s, P=90748Pa, L=0.3m, MVD=20m,
LWC=0.5g/m3, t=360s,
= 4 , T=-12 C and -4 C. We calculated results in the improved model and the Message
model.

0.06
0.04

0.04
0.02
0.02
Foil Foil
0 Tensility Tensility
Experiment 0 Experiment
'y'

'y'

No_Tensility No_Tensility
-0.02
-0.02

-0.04
-0.04
-0.06

-0.06
-0.08
-0.02 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 -0.02 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
'x' 'x'

(a) T=-12 C (a) T=-4 C

Fig 2 The calculation of heat transfer coefficient

Our model was developed based on traditional thermodynamic model ,we add the infection of surface energy.
Some cases at NACA0012 are simulated with our model in order to verify its correctness. The calculated results
show that, our model was consistent with the traditional thermodynamic model in Low temperature, but our model
have better results in high temperatures.

5. Conclusion

We get the following conclusions based on our studies:

(1) During the icing process, the accretion rate and ice type depend not only on the airflow parameters but also on
the inner heat transfer characteristics.
(2) We found that, not all of its kinetic energy is converted into heat when the drop impact on the airplane, most of
the energy will be converted into water droplets shape changes of increased surface energy. The surface energy
of the surface tension caused by changes of the shape of drops have the same order of magnitude with the
droplet kinetic energy. This energy can not be ignored during icing simulation.
676 Zhi-Hong Zhou et al. / Procedia Engineering 99 (2015) 671 – 676

Acknowledgements

This research was sponsored by The National Natural Science Foundation (11172314), National Postdoctoral
Foundation(2012M512065) ,and Research Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Aerodynamics.

References

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