A Comparison Study on AC-DBD Plasma and Electrical Heating for Aircraft Icing Mitigation

Abstract

A comparison study of utilizing thermal effects of a Dielectric-Barrier-Discharge (DBD) plasma actuator and a conventional electrical film heater for aircraft icing mitigation was performed in an Icing Research Tunnel available at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU -IRT). A NACA0012 airfoil/wing model embedded with an AC-DBD plasma actuator and a conventional electrical film heater over the airfoil surface was tested under a typical aircraft icing condition. While a high-speed imaging system was used to record the dynamic ice accretion and transient surface water transport processes over the airfoil surface, an infrared (IR) thermal imaging system was also utilized to map the corresponding surface temperature distributions over the airfoil surface simultaneously to quantify the unsteady heat transfer and phase changing process over the ice accreting airfoil surface. It was found that, for the same input power, the AC-DBD plasma actuator and the electrical film heater showed almost the equivalent effectiveness in preventing ice accretion over the airfoil surface. With the same total power input, further optimization of the AC-DBD plasma actuator with a duty-cycle modulation was found to have a better anti-/de-icing performance, in comparison to the conventional electrical film heater. The findings derived from the present study demonstrated the potential of a new class of anti-/de-icing strategy by leveraging the thermal effects of DBD plasma actuators for aircraft in-flight icing mitigation.

Recent Developments on Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) Plasma Actuators for Icing Mitigation

“…In the context of this study, another report by Liu et al [176] compared the actuation of DBD plasma actuators with conventional electrical heating using the same experimental setup and conditions as reported in [149]. The reported results are consistent with the previous information.…”

Nanosecond-pulsed dielectric barrier discharge-based plasma-assisted anti-icing: modeling and mechanism analysis

“…The effect and efficiency of nSDBD-based de-icing on aircraft wings were confirmed in an early experiment [19] in 2016. Later, the concept of plasma-assisted anti-icing or icing control was proposed [20,21] and a rich set of experiments were conducted [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] in the following years. It was found that at the same total power input, an acSDBD has a better anti-/de-icing performance in comparison to a conventional electrical film heater if a duty-cycle modulation [23,28] is used.…”

“…Later, the concept of plasma-assisted anti-icing or icing control was proposed [20,21] and a rich set of experiments were conducted [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] in the following years. It was found that at the same total power input, an acSDBD has a better anti-/de-icing performance in comparison to a conventional electrical film heater if a duty-cycle modulation [23,28] is used. The temperature distributions of acSDBDs and nSDBDs were studied using an infrared (IR)thermal imaging system [26,27]; the authors claimed that heat dissipation for nSDBDs is more effective than for acSDBDs, suggesting better anti-icing performance.…”

A Review of Icing Research and Development of Icing Mitigation Techniques for Fixed-Wing UAVs

“…Some studies have shown that plasma actuators are effective anti-icing/deicing devices, and nanosecond dielectric barrier discharge (NSDBD) plasma actuators have been found to perform better than alternating current DBD plasma actuators [152][153][154][155]. Zhu et al [156,157] investigated the heating performance of NSDBD and demonstrated that it can heat up quickly and has an ice-proof heating effect.…”