AIRFOIL ICING AT LOW REYNOLDS NUMBERS
A.A. Sidorenko, A.S. Shmakov, E.A. Merkulova
Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ITAM SB RAS), Novosibirsk, Russia
Abstract
Experimental and computational data on the icing of a 300-mm-chord airfoil at freestream temperatures of -5 and -15 °C are compared. It is found that, at low Reynolds numbers, classical models do adequately reproduce the overall ice shape, but fail to resolve small-scale features (e.g., ridges, needles, and rivulets). The smoothing of these features is particularly pronounced for mixed-phase icing. For small unmanned aerial vehicles, this limitation is critical because small-scale ice on thin leading edges significantly alters the flow structure and heat transfer. The study demonstrates that ignoring small-scale ice structures makes it impossible to accurately predict the icing process, which calls into question the applicability of existing numerical models for analyzing the unmanned aerial vehicle icing.
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