Experimental Investigation of Ice Accretion Effect On NACA 0018 Airfoil

Accretion of ice on aircraft wing is one of the most significant hazards to the safe and efficient operation of aircraft as it can reduce aircraft performance in a number of ways. Ice particles adhere to the wing surfaces and become a part of the wings itself. This tends to change the profile of airplane wings and degrades their aerodynamic properties. It reduces aircraft efficiency by increasing weight, reducing lift, decreasing thrust, and increasing drag. The present work focuses on the aerodynamic performance of a twin horn iced airfoil. In this, an artificial twin horn iced wooden layer is fabricated out of soft wood material which is mounted onto a NACA 0018 Airfoil which is suitable to test in the 30cm×30cm test section of low speed wind tunnel with different angles of attack from -20˚ to 20˚ for an increment of 5˚. Experiments are carried out to study static pressure distribution, drag and lift variations over blank airfoil and Twin Horn Iced Airfoil. Raw data from the wind tunnel is processed and pressure, lift and drag coefficients are calculated using mathematical equations. The aerodynamic performance of a blank airfoil proved to be considerably better compared to twin horn iced airfoil.