Asymmetric Heat Transfer in Aircraft Electrothermal Anti-Icing

Abstract

Aircraft icing is an important cause of air disasters, and electrothermal anti-icing is a common protection method. In this work, the influence of icing meteorological conditions on the anti-icing was studied through an icing wind tunnel experiment on the fairing. Based on the finite volume method, a transient heat transfer calculation method for electrothermal anti-icing was proposed. The calculated results were compared with the experimental results, and the influence of heating mode and structure layout on the anti-icing effect was analyzed. The results show that the calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results, and the heat transfer of the anti-icing structure shows obvious asymmetry. First, during heating, the temperature gradient of the structural profile is large, the high temperature is concentrated in the heating layer, and the temperature distribution of the heating layer is relatively uniform. During cooling, the temperature distribution of the structural profile is more uniform, the high temperature is mainly concentrated in the back conduction layer, and the temperature of the outer wall increases first and then decreases from the center to the surroundings. Second, when the spray is turned on, the temperature of the outer wall is significantly reduced, but the temperature of the heating layer hardly changes. Third, the uniform heating mode can simultaneously raise the temperature of the outer wall and reduce the temperature of heating layer. Fourth, while the front conduction layer can significantly affect the temperature of the heating layer and the outer wall, the effect of the back conduction layer is small. However, the back one can be used to control the structural temperature more finely.