Aerodynamic Degradation of Iced Airfoils: Experiments and CFD Simulations

The phenomenon of in-flight icing may affect all types of aircraft. Presence of ice on wings can lead to a number of aerodynamic degradation problems. Thus, it is important to understand the different ice shapes that can form on the wings and how they affect aerodynamics. When compared to wings without ice, wings with ice indicate decreased maximum lift, increased drag, changes in pressure distribution, stall occurring at much lower angles of attack, increased stall speed, and reduced controllability. The in-house ice accretion prediction code R-ICE using 2-D panel method was developed. The CFD simulation with the software ANSYS CFX 11.0 was used to simulate flow around iced airfoils NACA 0012. These airfoils were experimentally investigated in a wind tunnel. The paper presents a comparison of lift and drag coefficients experimentally observed and numerically simulated.