Numerical Investigation of the Aerodynamic Behavior of a Swept Wing with Glaze Ice Shape Imitators

Ice accretion on aerodynamic surfaces, particularly under glaze icing conditions, can lead to significant performance degradation due to early flow separation and altered pressure distributions. This study presents a computational investigation of glaze ice effects on a swept wing using simplified, spoiler-like geometries to imitate horn ice shapes. The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) methodology is employed for clean and iced configurations of the GLC-305 swept wing – representative of modern business jet designs. Parametric variations in upper spoiler angle are explored, while experimental wind tunnel data serves as validation for the computational models. The results demonstrate that the RANS approach captures key aerodynamic trends, including lift degradation and pitching moment inflection behavior, despite known limitations in modeling separated flows. Comparisons with experimental data reveal that configurations with spoilers oriented normal to the wing surface incur the most severe aerodynamic penalties. Overall, the RANS approach proves to be a suitable starting point for characterizing the performance impacts of ice accretion on swept wings with simplified horn-shape imitators.