Projects per year
Abstract
Ice accretion often poses serious operational and safety challenges in a wide range of industries, such as aircraft, wind turbines, power transmission cables, oil field exploration and production and marine transport. Great efforts have been expended to research and develop viable solutions for ice prevention. Effective ice protection techniques, however, have yet to be developed. Ice prevention measures that are currently available often consume significant amounts of de-icing chemicals or energy, and these approaches are expensive to operate and have long-term economic and environmental impacts. In this study, a new ice protective strategy based on thin film surface acoustic waves (SAWs) is proposed that generates: nanoscale ‘earthquake’-like vibrations, acoustic streaming, and acousto-heating effects, directly at the ice-structure interface, which actively and effectively delays ice nucleation and weakens ice adhesion on the structure surface. Compared with the conventional electro-thermal de-icing method, the SAW approach demonstrates a much-improved energy efficiency for ice-removal. The potential for the dual capability of autonomous ice monitoring and removing functions using the SAW generation elements as transducers has also been explored.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2001776 |
Journal | Advanced Materials Interfaces |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 23 Dec 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 23 Jan 2021 |
Keywords
- ice protection
- icing
- icing monitoring
- surface acoustic waves
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ReNU: EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Renewable Energy Northeast Universities (ReNU)
1/04/19 → 30/09/27
Project: Project from a former institution
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Thin Film Acoustic Wave Platform for Conformable and Mechanically Flexible Biosensors
2/07/17 → 30/10/20
Project: Project from a former institution