Aircraft icing is a phenomenon in which supercooled droplets in the atmosphere collide with wing and engine surfaces, forming ice layers. In particular, icing on fan rotor blades of aircraft engines poses a significant risk, as accumulated ice may shed due to centrifugal forces from blade rotation and flow into the engine, potentially causing mechanical damage or serious accidents. In this study, an icing simulation considering ice shedding was conducted on swept fan rotor blades to investigate the influence of sweep geometry on ice shedding and the flow field after shedding. As a result, icing on the leading edge leads to flow separation regions, which reduces adiabatic efficiency. However, when ice shedding occurs, the extent of these regions is diminished, resulting in partial recovery of the adiabatic efficiency. Furthermore, the study revealed that aerodynamic heating induced by the sweep reduces ice accretion, and the centrifugal force component parallel to the blade surface decreases, thereby suppressing ice shedding.
FUJIU et al. (Wed,) studied this question.