Development of a Measurment Method to Assess the Ice Adhesive Properties

Ice formation on the power and industrial equipment, such as power lines, wind turbines, solar panels, etc., could cause malfunctions or significant reduction in their performance. Solutions including the Ice-phobic Coating (IC) and, in particular, the anti-icing surfaces, are an efficient method in protecting the surfaces from icing. However, the ice adhesion strength values obtained by different research groups are difficult to be compared directly, as any unified standard for measuring the ice adhesion strength is missing, which causes significant variations in the results and makes it difficult to further implement the IC technique in practical applications. The paper analyses the sources of errors in the existing ice adhesion measurement techniques and develops a methodology that minimizes effect of the main influencing factors. An appropriate test bench with an efficient surface cooling system based on the Peltier element and the micro-breaking machine was designed and developed in implementing the technique, its purpose was to determine adhesion characteristics of the statically frozen ice using the horizontal shear method. In the future, the proposed methodology could become a basis for the standardized ice adhesion testing.