Ice shedding tests for the assessment of hybrid ice protection systems

Atmospheric icing of structures needs to be prevented in technical areas, where it causes safety risks and technical failures. Hybrid ice protection systems, consisting of active elements (heater / mechanical actuators) and passive icephobic coatings are in focus of recent development projects. An efficient test design for an ice wind tunnel is described, developed to quantitatively assess the effects of surfaces in hybrid ice protection systems. The presented ice shedding test serves as a tool to pre-select most relevant parameters and surfaces for further advanced tests with aerodynamic profiles in the ice wind tunnel test facility. Results are to be compared with lab-based ice test results to learn more about the relevance and significance of these results and provide a well-founded testing strategy for icephobic surface technologies.