In-flight ice accretion poses a major safety concern in aviation. It occurs due to the icing from clouds of supercooled water droplets, the accumulation of ice crystals at high altitudes, or snow buildup. Assessing the detrimental effects of ice accretion on aircraft performance and handling qualities is a complex, multidisciplinary task, as it requires modeling the dynamics of the dispersed phase (water droplets, ice crystals, and snowflakes), the particle impact dynamics and its interaction with the aircraft surfaces, the liquid film dynamics, the solidification process, and possibly ice shedding. The ice protection systems must also be modeled. The present review addresses the status of ice accretion models and simulation tools. The intrinsically stochastic nature of ice accretion, combined with substantial operational and modeling uncertainties, makes it challenging to validate these tools against experimental observations and use simulation as a reliable means of compliance for certification in icing conditions, especially for innovative aircraft configurations such as wing-body and advanced urban air mobility vehicles.
Guardone et al. (2025) studied this question.