Experimental assessment of the ice protection effectiveness of icephobic coatings for a hovering drone rotor.

A new installation at the Anti-Icing Materials International Laboratory was developed to study the effects of icing on the degradation of a hovering drone rotor aerodynamic performance and to test different potential ice protection solutions. Following a study on icing parameters effects on aerodynamic performance, this paper studies a methodology developed to assess the performances of coatings as a potential ice protection system under severe icing conditions and rotor speeds up to 4950 RPM. Four different coatings, commercial or under development, were applied to the rotor blades and their effect on the resulting ice accumulation and aerodynamic degradation were measured and compared to those previously obtained on similar, uncoated blades. Results show that passive icephobic coatings in general are a promising solution to limit the negative effect of icing conditions for drone applications, without any additional energy consumption from the system. Moreover, the repeatability assessment of tests under similar conditions and for the same coating showed agreement within ±5% between repetitions, showing no signs of ice protection efficiency degradation for any of the tested coatings. • The work of this article marks the continuity of a series of studies done with a new spinning rotor drone test setup in hover flight mode performed at the 9-m high cold chamber of the Anti-Icing Materials International Laboratory (AMIL). Four different surface protection coatings are applied on their own set of blades for testing in the cold room. The resulting ice accumulation and performance degradation of the spinning rotor are then monitored, recorded and compared to the results obtained of bare uncoated blades. The effects and performances of the coatings tested are then assessed. • This report presents a new test methodology and setup to assess the performances of protective surfaces as a passive ice protection system for small and medium drone rotors, which differs than for the rotorcraft application actually found in the literature. It also presented unique results on the possibility of using those surfaces for drones, which cannot be simply deduced from rotorcraft studies found in the literature. This demonstrates the importance of this work and of this new methodology and test setup for the industry since the literature greatly lacks reported data of similar icing tests using ice protection coatings on a UAV. • This first test campaign has proven the ability of icephobic surface coatings to efficiently perform as ice protection systems. Moreover, coatings have a positive potential of being combined with an active ice protection system (such as electrothermal) as a way to reduce the power consumption of those systems. Further research will be done with additional products and also combined with active ice protection systems to help lower their power consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]