Parameters Selection of the Laser Bench for Studying Ice Fracturing while Aviation Systems Icing

Аuthors

Modorskii V. Y.^*, Vladimirov N. V.^**, Kalyulin S. L.^***, Sazhenkov N. A.^****

Perm National Research Polytechnic University, PNRPU, 29, Komsomolsky Prospekt, Perm, 614990, Russia

*e-mail: modorsky@pstu.ru
**e-mail: nikitavladimirov500@gmail.com
***e-mail: ksl@pstu.ru
****e-mail: sazhenkov_na@mail.ru

Abstract

Aircraft icing is one of the most significant issues in aviation safety and has attracted the attention of the scientific community for several decades. The problem of icing is particularly severe for the aviation systems widely implemented nowadays for image acquisition, cargo transportation and various objects monitoring. Application of traditional aircraft de-icing systems on small aircraft systems is limited by their large size, weight, and high power consumption, which significantly reduces the payload and flight endurance of the aircraft.
The authors of this article have proposed a new method for laser irradiation application for ice removing from the small aircraft fan blades, supported by the patent. The presented approach is innovative, and presumably effectively addresses the icing problem without significantly increasing the weight and power consumption of the small aircraft systems.
The hypothesis put forward by the authors consists in the fact that a focused laser beam with specific parameters (power, pulse duration, and operating mode) can effectively destroy the ice deposits on the surfaces of small aircraft systems while maintaining minimal energy consumption and without causing a structural damage.
The purpose of this study is a preliminary assessment of the technical parameters of the Luch-1 special test rig, which will allow feasibility evaluating of the laser de-icing systems as applied to the small aircraft, namely identifying the key characteristics of the laser source of the rig being developed.
The following criteria are proposed for the laser-induced ice melting effectiveness evaluating: the diameter of the ice sample burning-in channel (D, mm); the depth of the ice sample burning-in channel (h, mm); the removed ice mass (Δm, g).
The ice melting efficiency was defined as a function of laser power W (W) and the distance from the laser head to the ice sample surface S (mm), with a constant sample exposure time of 10 seconds.
It is demonstrated that the laser system power increasing from 12 to 99 W resulted in a steady increase in the ice burning-in channel diameter, D (mm), from 8.6 to 16.3 mm, while sustaining the burning-in channel depth within the range of 4.5–6 mm. The options of modes with the power of 80 and 99 W appeared herewith to be the most effective from the viewpoint of the ice mass removing, at which the mass loss (Δm) was 20.7 and 24.3 g respectively.
The article demonstrates that the distance increasing from the laser head to the sample surface (S, mm) from 25 mm to 125 mm leads to a simultaneous monotonic increase in the burning-in channel diameter (D, mm) from 5.5 to 20 mm and a decrease in the burning-in channel depth (h, mm) from 4 to 0.5 mm.
It is demonstrated as well that under the laser exposure conditions described in this study, melting rates in the ranges of 27–36 mm/min and 3–24 mm/min were obtained for the first and second series of experiments, respectively. This is comparable to the ice growth rates typical for icing of the small-sized unmanned aerial vehicles. The experimental data obtained are planned to be employed in the production and follow-up of the test rig for the Luch-1 laser anti-icing system for small-sized aircraft.

Keywords:

small-sized aircraft systems, aircraft icing, anti-icing laser systems, anti-icing system effectiveness evaluation, ice fracturing

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