An Experimental Investigation to Assess the Effectiveness of Various Anti-Icing Coatings for UAV Propeller Icing Mitigation
Nianhong Han, Haiyang Hu, Hui Hu
Abstract
View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-3964.vid Experimental studies were conducted to investigate the effects of different anti-icing coatings on the icing process of UAV propellers. Three different coatings with different anti-icing mechanisms were applied in the test. The experimental investigation was conducted under different environmental conditions (glaze ice condition and rime ice condition) in the Icing Tunnel at the Iowa State University Aerospace Engineering Department (i.e., ISU-IRT). High-speed photos were taken to track the progression of the ice growth. The power and thrust data are monitored synchronously to reflect the influence of the coating on propeller performance. The experimental results show that both low-adhesion coatings have a significant anti-icing effectiveness, but the anti-icing effectiveness of the superhydrophobic surface is very poor.