Novel Two-Dimensional Modeling Approach for Aircraft Icing

A new modeling approach to tackle the challenging problem of in-flight icing prediction is formulated and verified. With use of this new approach, termed morphogenetic modeling, the shape, structural details, and density of aircraft ice accretions are predicted by emulating the behavior of individual fluid elements. A two-dimensional, morphogenetic model is used to predict the ice accretion forming on a cylinder over a range of in-flight conditions. The model predicts rime, glaze, and simultaneous glaze and rime accretions. A partial verification of the model has been successfully accomplished. Although there are some discrepancies between experimental and predicted accretion shapes, especially for large and wet accretions, the overall agreement is good. In particular, the prediction of the stagnation line growth rate agrees well with experimental data. The results of our exploratory research are encouraging and suggest that morphogenetic modeling has the potential to advance the simulation of in-flight icing. Practical implementation of this approach will require coupling the model to an external flowfield solver, as well as to heat transfer and droplet impingement solvers. Further verification and extension to three dimensions are planned.