Analysis of Experimental Ice Shedding Events on a Propeller at the NASA Glenn Icing Research Tunnel

The aerospace industry is interested in the development and certification of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) transportation vehicles. However, shedding of accreted ice on propellers poses a hazard for the future of AAM as they pursue all-weather operations including flight into icing conditions. An experimental study has been conducted in NASA’s Icing Research Tunnel to simulate a propeller in axial flow. This test produced highspeed videos of ice shedding events. A method for analyzing these videos has been developed to identify the locations of each shedding event, including the span locations and the angular positions, using a computer script and user inputs. The data was then analyzed to evaluate the patterns in the span locations and the randomness in the angular positions. The variance of the user’s graphical inputs is also evaluated, showing that this method produces a data set with a high level of accuracy that is suitable for future analyses.