Advanced Optical Measurements of Ice Adhesion on Icephobic Aircraft Surfaces

Ice accretion on aircraft, helicopter, spacecraft, rovers, and airflow control surfaces is a significant problem for commercial, military, and NASA aerospace operations. It is estimated that these ice-related problems cost the aerospace industry over a billion dollars a year and cause nearly 10% of all weather-related aircraft fatalities. Despite the pressing need for ice mitigation on mission critical surfaces, icephobic materials are difficult to design and evaluate, since (1) ice adhesion is poorly understood and (2) current testing methods are destructive and not adaptable to real-world conditions. Here, we propose to design and build an optical system to examine ice adhesion on several aerospace-relevant surfaces. The proposed optical system will measure the vibration frequencies of the surface with and without ice. Since the adhered ice strains the underlying substrate lattice, we expect that the vibrational frequencies of the material will energetically shift proportional to the ice adhesion strength, a phenomenon that is well known in semiconductor science. In order to establish the accuracy of this optical technique for iced surfaces, we will evaluate the same iced surfaces using shear strength measurements and x-ray diffraction. Once the validity of the optical method has been established, we will test multiple NASA-provided coatings to examine icephobicity material trends and enhance NASA's numerical ice model (LEWICE). Finally, based off the results obtained at Wyoming, we will miniaturize the optical setup for testing at NASA facilities.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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