Research progress on construction strategy and technical evaluation of aircraft icing accretion protection system

The impact of unstable supercooled water droplets suspended in the cloud on the solid will cause its surface to freeze,and the flight safety of the aircraft will be seriously affected when flying in this environment.Aircraft icing protection system is an important device to reduce icing accidents and improve aircraft safety performance,which is of great significance to ensure flight safety.Based on the energy source,this paper proposes a general strategy for constructing an aircraft icing protection system,including Active Anti-icing and De-icing(AAD)system,Passive Antiicing and De-icing(PAD)system and Composite Anti-icing and De-icing(CAD)system.The principle,scope of application,advantages and disadvantages of aircraft anti-icing and de-icing technologies such as electric pulse de-icing,low-frequency piezoelectric de-icing,and hydrophobic material anti-icing are explored in detail,and the corresponding improvement measures are proposed.The future development of aircraft anti-icing and de-icing technology is prospected,and some new ideas are provided for the improvement of aircraft anti-icing and de-icing technology.

Study of Aircraft Icing Warning Algorithm Based on Millimeter Wave Radar

In order to avoid accidents due to aircraft icing, an algorithm for identifying supercooled water was studied. Specifically, a threshold method based on millimeter wave radar, lidar, and radiosonde was used to retrieve the coverage area of supercooled water and a fuzzy logic algorithm was used to classify the observed meteorological targets. The macrophysical characteristics of supercooled water could be accurately identified by combing the threshold method with the fuzzy logic algorithm. In order to acquire microphysical characteristics of supercooled water in a mixed phase, the unimodal spectral distribution of supercooled water was extracted from a bimodal or trimodal spectral distribution of a mixed phase cloud, which was then used to retrieve the effective radius and liquid water content of supercooled water by using an empirical formula. These retrieved macro- and micro-physical characteristics of supercooled water can be used to guide aircrafts during takeoff, flight, and landing to avoid dangerous areas.

Molecular tagging techniques and their applications to the study of complex thermal flow phenomena1,211

This review article reports the recent progress in the development of a new group of molecule-based flow diagnostic techniques, which include molecular tag- ging velocimetry （MTV） and molecular tagging thermometry （MTT）, for both qualitative flow visualization of thermally induced flow structures and quantitative whole-field mea- surements of flow velocity and temperature distributions. The MTV and MTT techniques can also be easily combined to result in a so-called molecular tagging velocimetry and ther- mometry （MTV＆T） technique, which is capble of achieving simultaneous measurements of flow velocity and temperature distribution in fluid flows. Instead of using tiny particles, the molecular tagging techniques （MTV, MTT, and MTV＆T） use phosphorescent molecules, which can be turned into long-lasting glowing marks upon excitation by photons of appropriate wavelength, as the tracers for the flow veloc- ity and temperature measurements. The unique attraction and implementation of the molecular tagging techniques are demonstrated by three application examples, which include： （1） to quantify the unsteady heat transfer process from a heated cylinder to the surrounding fluid flow in order to exam- ine the thermal effects on the wake instabilities behind the heated cylinder operating in mixed and forced heat convec- tion regimes, （2） to reveal the time evolution of unsteady heat transfer and phase changing process inside micro-sized, icing water droplets in order to elucidate the underlying physics pertinent to aircraft icing phenomena, and （3） to achievesimultaneous droplet size, velocity and temperature measure- ments of ＂in-flight＂ droplets to characterize the dynamic and thermodynamic behaviors of flying droplets in spray flows.

Study on Diagnosis Weather Process and Flight Impact of Heavy Snowfall in Northeast China “11/2021”

Based on ERA5 reanalysis data, the characteristics of weather situation, water vapor condition, dynamic uplift condition, energy condition, ice accumulation environment and flight effect of aircraft in the heavy snowfall process in northeast China from November 5 to 12, 2021 are analyzed. The results show that the heavy snowfall process in Northeast China is caused by the combination of Northeast China Cold Vortex, trough, low level frontal cyclone and cold front. Through the analysis of the physical field, it is found that the sufficient water vapor transport is from the south and the southeast, the convergence rising in the lower layer, divergence “pumping” in the upper layer, air flow rising in the vertical plane and a large amount of convection effective potential energy are all contributing to the heavy snowfall. The impact of heavy snowfall on flight mainly includes low visibility and ice accumulation. Water vapor flux, water vapor flux divergence, vertical velocity, potential temperature and convective effective potential energy can all be used as the judging indexes of heavy snowfall forecast.

Aircraft nonlinear stability analysis and multidimensional stability region estimation under icing conditions

Icing is one of the crucial factors that could pose great threat to flight safety,and thus research on stability and stability region of aircraft safety under icing conditions is significant for control and flight.Nonlinear dynamical equations and models of aerodynamic coefficients of an aircraft are set up in this paper to study the stability and stability region of the aircraft under an icing condition.Firstly,the equilibrium points of the iced aircraft system are calculated and analyzed based on the theory of differential equation stability.Secondly,according to the correlation theory about equilibrium points and the stability region,this paper estimates the multidimensional stability region of the aircraft,based on which the stability regions before and after icing are compared.Finally,the results are confirmed by the time history analysis.The results can give a reference for stability analysis and envelope protection of the nonlinear system of an iced aircraft.

Icing tolerance envelope protection based on variable-weighted multiple-model predictive control

Multiple-model predictive control(MMPC) is a fundamental icing tolerance envelope protection(ITEP) design method that can systematically handle nonlinear and time-varying constraints. However, few studies have addressed the envelope protection failure that results from the inaccurate prediction of multiple linear predictive models when actual conditions deviate from design conditions. In this study, weights that vary with icing conditions and flight parameters are considered to develop an effective and reliable envelope protection control strategy. First, an ITEP structure based on variable-weighted MMPC was implemented to improve the protection performance with condition departure information. Then, a variable-weighted rule was proposed to guarantee the stability of variable-weighted MMPC. A design approach involving a variable-weighted function that uses icing conditions and flight parameters as arguments was also developed with the proposed rules. Finally, a systematic ITEP design method on variable-weighted MMPC was constructed with additional design criteria for other normal control parameters.Simulations were conducted, and the results show that the proposed method can effectively enhance ITEP performance.

Optimization design of airfoils under atmospheric icing conditions for UAV

Natural ice accretion on the lifting surface of an aircraft is detrimental to its aerodynamic performance, as it changes the effective streamlined body. The main focus of this work considers the optimization design of airfoils under atmospheric icing conditions for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV). The ice formation process is simulated by the Eulerian approach and the three-dimensional Myers model. A three-equation turbulence model is implemented to accurately predict the stall performance of the iced airfoil. In recognition of the real atmospheric variability in the icing parameters, the medium volume diameter of supercooled water droplets is treated as an uncertainty with an assumed probability density function. A technique of polynomial chaos expansion is used to propagate the input uncertainty through the deterministic system. The numerical results show that the multipoint/multiobjective optimization strategy can efficiently improve both the ice tolerance and the cruise performance of an airfoil. The reason for the focus on robust optimization is that the ice angle of the optimized airfoil becomes less critical to the incoming flow.The optimized airfoils are applied to a UAV platform, in which the performance improvement and the relevant key flow feature are both preserved.

Optimization of multi-element airfoil settings considering ice accretion effect

Almost half of all flight accidents caused by inflight icing occur at the approach and landing phases when high-lift devices are deployed.The present study focuses on the optimization of an ice-tolerant multi-element airfoil.Dual-objective optimization is carried out with critical hornshaped ice accumulated during the holding phase.The optimization results show that the present optimization method significantly enhances the iced-state and clean-state performance.The optimal multi-element airfoil has a larger deflection angle and wider gap at the slat and the flap compared with the baseline configuration.The sensitivity of each design parameter is analyzed,which verifies the robustness of the design.The design is further assessed when ice is accreted during the approach and landing phases,which also shows performance improvement.