Power and Design Optimization of Electro-Thermal Anti-Icing Systems via FENSAP-ICE

A general methodology for the power and design optimization of electro-thermal in-flight anti-icing systems is presented. The optimization goal is to achieve an ice-free area over the protected zone by using the lowest energy possible. The power and/or length of the electric pads are considered as design variables. The optimization procedure is performed via a derivative-free method that typically needs many objective function evaluations. This would be impractical as aero-icing flow simulation remains computationally intensive when coupled with conjugate heat transfer calculations, as in the case of ice protection systems. The cost is even more prohibitive for an optimization process, as a large number of simulations are needed. To make it practical, this work presents a surrogate-based optimization approach using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), in conjunction with Kriging. The numerical results obtained for some optimization cases show the benefits of the methodology in substantially reducing the cost of high-fidelity optimization of electrothermal anti-icing systems, in particular, and other types of thermal-based ice protection systems, in general.