Numerical Simulation of Ice Accretion on the Rotor Blade of a Jet Engine Considering Splash and Bounce 2013-01-2209

Ice accretion is a phenomenon in which supercooled water droplets impinge and accrete on a body. In the present study, we focus on a jet engine because it is well known that ice accretion on blades and vanes leads to performance degradation and has caused severe accidents. Although various anti-icing and deicing systems have been developed, such accidents still occur. Therefore, it is important to clarify the phenomenon of ice accretion in a jet engine. However, flight tests for ice accretion are very expensive, and in the wind tunnel it is difficult to reproduce every climate condition where ice accretion occurs. Therefore, it is expected that computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which can estimate ice accretion in various climate conditions, will be a useful way to predict the ice accretion phenomenon. The characteristic phenomena of supercooled large droplets (SLD) are splash and bounce. In this study, we apply an ice accretion model considering the splash and bounce phenomena, and the numerical results are compared with the experimental data to validate the model. We apply the model to a rotor blade of a jet engine under an icing condition, and the numerical results with/without the model are compared. We confirm that with the model, the volume of ice near the hub is larger than the result without the model. Through this study, the influence of the icing model on SLD icing in a jet engine is numerically clarified.