Feasibility Study of Ultrasonic De-Icing Technique for Aircraft Wing Ice Protection

Abstract

Flight in icing conditions brings significant safety risks due to aircraft aerodynamic performance reduction, stability and controllability deterioration, failures, mechanical damages. For reliable operation in icing conditions active antiicing/de-icing systems are needed, which entail at the present time considerable on-board power consumption, additional weight, installation or maintenance difficulties and other drawbacks. Moreover, a lot of incidents still appear due to inflight icing. Nowadays, it is a high demand for efficient and reliable de-icing techniques. Recent studies presented hybrid and non-thermal in-flight ice protection methods with potentials to be more advantageous, including ultrasonic de-icing technique. In this paper, the feasibility study with semi-hard lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ultrasonic Langevin-type transducer was carried out. The theoretical model explaining ice detaching mechanism with applied ultrasonic guided wave propagation theory was described. The verifying experiment was conducted to prove feasibility of de-icing. Prospects for further research were given. Keywords—aircraft wing de-icing; ultrasonic de-icing; ice protection system; piezoelectric transducer