Transient testing of tensile ice adhesion

Icing of solid surfaces is a critical concern across various industries, as it can compromise the safety, performance, and reliability of systems. Mechanical ice removal is one of the various existing and emerging de-icing strategies. Ice removal is determined partially by the characteristic stresses associated with ice adhesion, specifically the values of the corresponding critical stresses that initiate ice delamination, which involves both adhesion and cohesion phenomena. This experimental study presents a novel method for measuring tensile ice adhesion based on stress-free ice bridges. The effects of ice bridge geometry, strain rate, and temperature on tensile ice adhesion are systematically measured, including the critical forces and stresses. The results demonstrate that increasing temperature and strain rate lead to a decrease in the ice adhesion strength. On the other hand, increasing the interface area increases ice adhesion strength, which indicates possible edge effects. This work has the potential to advance technologies aimed at ice removal and ice adhesion mitigation, particularly in applications such as de-icing and anti-icing in the automotive and aerospace industries. • Increasing the temperature or strain rate decreases tensile ice adhesion. • Increasing the interface area increases tensile ice adhesion. • Tensile ice adhesion is independent of ice bridge height. • Decreasing the temperature reduces the probability of adhesive failure. • Increasing the interface area reduces the probability of adhesive failure.