In-flight icing on unmanned aerial vehicle and its aerodynamic penalties

Szilder, Krzysztof; Yuan, Weixing

doi:10.1051/eucass/2016090173

Cited by 31 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Studies on UAVs have shown that the Reynolds number has a significant influence on the physics of ice accretion and also on the subsequent aerodynamic performance penalties [16][17][18]. Icing on UAVs is similar to icing on manned aircraft with some key differences related to airframe size, mission profiles, and icing sensitivity [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and Numerical Icing Penalties of an S826 Airfoil at Low Reynolds Numbers

et al. 2020

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Most icing research focuses on the high Reynolds number regime and manned aviation. Information on icing at low Reynolds numbers, as it is encountered by wind turbines and unmanned aerial vehicles, is less available, and few experimental datasets exist that can be used for validation of numerical tools. This study investigated the aerodynamic performance degradation on an S826 airfoil with 3D-printed ice shapes at Reynolds numbers Re = 2 × 105, 4 × 105, and 6 × 105. Three ice geometries were obtained from icing wind tunnel experiments, and an additional three geometries were generated with LEWICE. Experimental measurements of lift, drag, and pressure on the clean and iced airfoils have been conducted in the low-speed wind tunnel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The results showed that the icing performance penalty correlated to the complexity of the ice geometry. The experimental data were compared to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with the RANS solver FENSAP. Simulations were performed with two turbulence models (Spalart Allmaras and Menter’s k-ω SST). The simulation data showed good fidelity for the clean and streamlined icing cases but had limitations for complex ice shapes and stall.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and Numerical Icing Penalties of an S826 Airfoil at Low Reynolds Numbers

et al. 2020

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“…Furthermore, three-dimensional icing simulations for a wing and airfoil have been performed using icing models. To examine the effect of icing on the lift and drag forces, some researchers performed icing simulations for a swept wing under rime and glaze ice accretion conditions [4] and for an unmanned aerial vehicle [5]. Shen et al [6] performed a three-dimensional numerical simulation to reproduce the ice accretion on the engine inlet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Characteristic Phenomena and Temperature on Super-Cooled Large Droplet Icing on NACA0012 Airfoil and Axial Fan Blade

et al. 2020

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Icing simulations involving super-cooled large droplets (SLDs) on a NACA0012 airfoil and a commercial axial fan were performed considering the characteristic behavior of SLD icing (i.e., splash-bounce, deformation, and breakup). The simulations were performed considering weak coupling between flow field and droplet motion. The flow field was computed using the Eulerian method, wherein the droplet motion was simulated via the Lagrangian method. To represent the ice shape, an extended Messinger model was used for thermodynamic computation. The ice shape and collection efficiency of the NACA0012 airfoil derived using the icing simulation exhibited a reasonable agreement with the existing experimental data. The icing simulation results for the axial fan, in terms of distribution of ice on the blade and its influence on the flow field, indicated that flow separation occurred, and the mass flow rate of the flow passage decreased. Moreover, the splash and bounce phenomena considerably influenced the icing process; however, the effect of the deformation and breakup phenomena was negligibly small. In terms of the effect of the SLDs on the icing phenomena, it was noted that, with the decrease in the SLD temperature (from −5 °C to −15 °C), the number of adhering SLDs increased, whereas the number of splashing and bouncing SLDs decreased.

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“…This study was closely related to previous work conducted at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) on similar topics, such as the comparison of two numerical codes for icing penalties (Hann, 2018), the effect of meteorological conditions on performance (Fajt et al , 2019), experimental ice accretion results (Hann, 2019) and experimental icing performance degradation studies (Hann et al , 2020). Further relevant work on icing performance degradation on UAV airfoils has been conducted by Williams et al (2017) and Szilder and Yuan (2017) – none of which take the effect of varying airspeeds or chord lengths into closer account.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UAV icing: the influence of airspeed and chord length on performance degradation

Hann

Johansen

2021

AEAT

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Purpose The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of icing on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at low Reynolds numbers and to highlight the differences to icing on manned aircraft at high Reynolds numbers. This paper follows existing research on low Reynolds number effects on ice accretion. This study extends the focus to how variations of airspeed and chord length affect the ice accretions, and aerodynamic performance degradation is investigated. Design/methodology/approach A parametric study with independent variations of airspeed and chord lengths was conducted on a typical UAV airfoil (RG-15) using icing computational fluid dynamic methods. FENSAP-ICE was used to simulate ice shapes and aerodynamic performance penalties. Validation was performed with two experimental ice shapes obtained from a low-speed icing wind tunnel. Three meteorological conditions were chosen to represent the icing typologies of rime, glaze and mixed ice. A parameter study with different chord lengths and airspeeds was then conducted for rime, glaze and mixed icing conditions. Findings The simulation results showed that the effect of airspeed variation depended on the ice accretion regime. For rime, it led to a minor increase in ice accretion. For mixed and glaze, the impact on ice geometry and penalties was substantially larger. The variation of chord length had a substantial impact on relative ice thicknesses, ice area, ice limits and performance degradation, independent from the icing regime. Research limitations/implications The implications of this manuscript are relevant for highlighting the differences between icing on manned and unmanned aircraft. Unmanned aircraft are typically smaller and fly slower than manned aircraft. Although previous research has documented the influence of this on the ice accretions, this paper investigates the effect on aerodynamic performance degradation. The findings in this work show that UAVs are more sensitive to icing conditions compared to larger and faster manned aircraft. By consequence, icing conditions are more severe for UAVs. Practical implications Atmospheric in-flight icing is a severe risk for fixed-wing UAVs and significantly limits their operational envelope. As UAVs are typically smaller and operate at lower airspeeds compared to manned aircraft, it is important to understand how the differences in airspeed and size affect ice accretion and aerodynamic performance penalties. Originality/value Earlier work has described the effect of Reynolds number variations on the ice accretion characteristics for UAVs. This work is expanding on those findings by investigating the effect of airspeed and chord length on ice accretion shapes separately. In addition, this study also investigates how these parameters affect aerodynamic performance penalties (lift, drag and stall).

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In-flight icing on unmanned aerial vehicle and its aerodynamic penalties

Cited by 31 publications

References 7 publications

Experimental and Numerical Icing Penalties of an S826 Airfoil at Low Reynolds Numbers

Experimental and Numerical Icing Penalties of an S826 Airfoil at Low Reynolds Numbers

Effect of Characteristic Phenomena and Temperature on Super-Cooled Large Droplet Icing on NACA0012 Airfoil and Axial Fan Blade

UAV icing: the influence of airspeed and chord length on performance degradation

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