Aircraft icing poses a significant safety risk, making the replication of atmospheric icing conditions in a laboratory environment essential. Current ice generation methods for preliminary testing of ice protection systems primarily rely on silicon molds for static ice and icing wind tunnels for impact ice. However, due to the different freezing processes, static and impact ice differ, limiting the relevance of preliminary tests. This paper introduces a novel ice printer as a simplified method to generate impact ice on a small scale comparable to that produced in icing wind tunnels. For validation, ice specimens generated with the ice printer are compared to those from an icing wind tunnel and silicone molds. The comparison is based on optical properties, density, and adhesion strength measured via centrifuge testing. Results show that the ice printer can reproduce a range of icing conditions similar to those generated in icing wind tunnels, in terms of density and adhesion strength. The static ice specimens generated with silicon molds show similar density but slightly higher adhesion strength. Based on these findings, the ice generated with the printer can be classified as impact ice. Additionally, this novel method offers high reproducibility and significantly improves cost and time efficiency compared to traditional icing wind tunnels.
J. Feder, P. Thiele, P. Meyer, C. Hühne
"Ice Printer: Novel Method for Generating Impact Ice"
Journal of Aircraft, (2025)