The aim of this Faraday Partnership project is to quantify, through experiment and modelling, the consequences to ice formation of the impact of super-cooled water droplets. The theoretical work will combine full numerical simulations and asymptotic approximations for impinging droplets including heat transfer between the super-cooled water droplets and the most sensitive surfaces of the aircraft. The aim is to better understand the ice formation on aircraft passing through clouds in order to improve aviation flight safety.

Project staff and support

Manuel Quero (Postgraduate Faraday Associate, Cranfield University)
David Hammond (Academic Supervisor, Cranfield University)
David Allwright (Technology Translator, Smith Institute)

This project is being carried out in the School of Engineering at Cranfield University, in conjunction with Aerospace Composite Technologies. It is supported by an EPSRC industrial CASE award, made available through the Faraday Partnership for Industrial Mathematics. Start date: October 2002; duration: 3 years.

Related projects

Droplet impact