Numerical Icing Simulations of Cylindrical Geometry and Comparisons to Flight Test Results

There is growing interest in government and industry to use numerical simulations for the Certification by Analysis of aircraft ice protection systems as a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to wind-tunnel and flight testing. The ice accretion on a cylindrical test article mounted under the wing of the National Research Council of Canada’s Convair-580 research aircraft during a flight test in Appendix O icing conditions was simulated using Ansys FENSAP-ICE™. A multishot simulation with input parameters averaged over the full icing period led to an increased level of liquid catch and ice accretion (by mass), and a broader ice profile when compared to a simulation with shot-averaged input parameters. An additional simulation using Ansys’ proprietary “extended icing data with vapor solution” method for calculating heat fluxes at the icing surface resulted in a broader ice profile in comparison to the classical technique, which produced a similar amount of accretion by mass. No combination of simulation settings, input parameters, and multishot methods tested in this study generated the same level of surface detail observed during flight testing, however, the amount of ice accretion, general location of ice features, and formation processes were in good agreement with the experimental results.