Canada has developed an aircraft ice-dredging coating testing device

Aircraft ice accumulation brings increased costs, environmental impact and safety reduction and other flight risks, whether for jets, helicopters, or drones, the aircraft manufacturing industry has been looking for a new, energy-free passive de-icing method to replace or supplement the traditional high-energy heat de-icing technology. Ice dredging coating has become a new research field that material scientists began to pay attention to, it is a passive, can be applied to the surface of the object anti-ice material, similar to paint or coating, can change the surface properties of the object, do not need human intervention and active de-icing, to achieve energy saving and consumption reduction. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has developed a testing method for this material technology, saying its findings have successfully filled gaps in this area.。 NRC has developed a unique fixed rotary ice adhesion device that allows researchers to control and repeat operations to measure the adhesion of ice to various ice-dredging coatings. The device is designed and assembled in the NRC's "high-altitude ice wind tunnel" and the test coating sample is fixed to the end of the rotating arm of the rotating device, the coating sample surface first forms ice accumulation in the wind tunnel, and then begins to rotate, gradually accelerating to 9000 rpm until the ice falls off. An accelerometer is used to measure ice shedding, and the shear force is calculated using the time of shedding and the quality of the ice build-up, and the less force required to de-ice, the better the coating will be. The reliability of the device is also reflected in the process of removing the movement of samples from the ice position to the rotating device by conducting the entire test in a high-altitude icing wind tunnel, thus avoiding the uncertainty of the test system due to changes in temperature and time during this phase.the technology is said to be more practical for the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in cold areas, and the dredging coating enables lightweight passive de-icing, particularly for features such as the limited load capacity and payload of drones. Using this method and device, the NRC has tested 12 ice-dredging coatings developed by a number of Canadian companies, three of which show the great potential of drones to combat flight ice accumulation, and in order to validate and demonstrate this technology in a physical ice-accumulating environment, the NRC plans to test the feasibility of these three ice-clearing coatings in high-altitude ice tunnels in early 2018 for use in drone wings.
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