Search

Ice nucleation and accretion on structural surfaces are sources of major safety and operational concerns in many industries including aviation and renewable energy. Common methods for tackling these are active ones such as heating, ultrasound, and chemicals or passive ones such as surface coatings. In this study, we explored the ice adhesion properties of slippery coated substrates by measuring the shear forces required to remove a glaze ice block on the coated substrates. Among the studied nanostructured and nanoscale surfaces [i.e., a superhydrophobic coating, a fluoropolymer coating, and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chain coating], the slippery omniphobic covalently attached liquid (SOCAL) surface with its flexible polymer brushes and liquid-like structure significantly reduced the ice adhesion on both glass and silicon surfaces. Further studies of the SOCAL coating on roughened substrates also demonstrated its low ice adhesion. The reduction in ice adhesion is attributed to the flexible nature of the brush-like structures of PDMS chains, allowing ice to detach easily. HIGHLIGHTS: • Introduces several simple and reproducible techniques to reduce ice adhesion significantly on surfaces with one surface coating and identifies the coating with the lowest adhesion. • Explores the lowest-adhesion coating on surfaces with microscale and macroscale structures and finds a continued reduction in ice adhesion. • Explores qualitatively and quantitatively through surface morphology and an analytical model the results of the ice adhesion values obtained, giving justification for all such results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of creation of a new layer of ice on the basal plane and on the prism plane of a hexagonal ice crystal is analyzed. It is demonstrated that the ordering of water molecules in the already existing crystal affects the freezing. On the basal plane, when the orientations of water molecules in the ice block are random, the arrangement of the new layer in a cubic manner is observed more frequently--approximately 1.7 times more often than in a hexagonal manner. When the water molecules in the ice block are more ordered, it results in the predominance of the oxygen atoms or the hydrogen atoms on the most outer part of the surface of the ice block. In this case, the hexagonal structure is formed more frequently when the supercooling of water exceeds 10 K. This phenomenon is explained by the influence of the oriented electric field, present as a consequence of the ordering of the dipoles of water molecules in the ice block. This field modifies the structure of solvation water (i.e., the layer of water in the immediate vicinity of the ice surface). We showed that the structure of solvation water predetermines the kind of the newly created layer of ice. This effect is temperature-dependent: when the temperature draws nearer to the melting point, the cubic structure becomes the prevailing form. The temperature at which the cubic and the hexagonal structures are formed with the same probabilities is equal to about 260 K. In the case of the prism plane, the new layer that is formed is always the hexagonal one, which is independent of the arrangement of water molecules in the ice block and is in agreement with previous literature data. For the basal plane, as well as for the prism plane, no evident dependence on the ordering of water molecules that constitute the ice block on the rate of crystallization can be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new three-dimensional mathematical model is proposed to predict the shape of accreted ice on helicopter rotors. The model assumes that ice accretion on a rotor’s surface occurs by flow and solidification of a thin water film on its surface. The model is developed by analyzing conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in the thin water film on a rotating curved surface. The model is expressed in rotating body-fitted nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinates, and the Coriolis-force term in the momentum equations is neglected because its effect is relatively small compared with that of the centrifugal force. The computational method is presented to solve the model, and the model is validated by comparing its results with published experimental data. The results show that the proposed model accurately predicts both the water-film thickness and the ice-layer thickness on a rotating surface. Additionally, the model has been used to study how the rotor angular speed and MVD (Median Volumetric Diameter) of the droplets affect ice accretion. The results show that an increase in both angular speed and MVD can lead to a thicker layer of ice, while the effect of MVD on ice accretion near the stagnation point becomes unobvious when MVD is larger enough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a theoretical model to study the growth of the carbon nanotube (CNT) on the catalyst substrate surface subjected to reactive plasma. The charging rate of the CNT, kinetics of electron, ions and neutral atoms, the growth rate of the CNT because of diffusion and accretion of ions on the catalyst nanoparticle inclusion of the issue of the plasma sheath is undertaken in the present model. Numerical calculations on the effect of ion density and temperature and the substrate bias on the growth of the CNT have been carried out for typical glow discharge plasma parameters. It is found that the height of CNT increases with the ion density of carbon ions and radius of CNT decreases with hydrogen ion density. The substrate bias also affects the growth rate of the CNT. The field emission characteristics from the CNTs can be analyzed from the results obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]