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Considerations on the Use of Hydrophobic, 2013-01-2108

Published
Superhydrophobic or Icephobic Coatings as a 09/17/2013
Part of the Aircraft Ice Protection System

Guy Fortin
Bombardier Aerospace

Copyright © 2013 SAE International

doi:10.4271/2013-01-2108

coating. However, erosion resistance is the biggest challenge

ABSTRACT for manufacturers and designers of coatings.
Ice adhesion on critical aircraft surfaces is a serious potential Superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings need to be
hazard that runs the risk of causing accidents. For this reason developed to satisfy erosion requirements. Ice phobic
aircraft are equipped with active ice protection systems coatings performance needs to be improved as well.
(AIPS). AIPS increase fuel consumption and add complexity
to the aircraft systems. Reducing energy consumption of the INTRODUCTION
AIPS or replacing the AIPS by a Passive Ice Protection
Icing and ice adhesion lead to dangerous and costly problems
System (PIPS), could significantly reduce aircraft fuel
for the aircraft industry. Aircraft components, such as the
consumption. New coatings with superhydrophobic
wing, winglet, vertical tail, horizontal tail, nacelle, pylon,
properties have been developed to reduce water adherence to
windshield, nose, fuselage, gear, probes and antenna accrete
surfaces. Superhydrophobic coatings can also reduce ice
ice during flight. Some components are essential for aircraft
adhesion on surfaces and are used as icephobic coatings.
aerodynamics and control such as the wing leading edge, the
wing upper and bottom surfaces, the winglet, the tail, the
The question is whether superhydrophobic or icephobic
nacelle, the pylon, the windshield and the probes. It is very
coatings would be able to reduce the cost associated with
difficult to remove accreted ice. This is why the most
AIPS. To address this concern, this paper reviews the current
important aircraft parts are equipped with active ice
knowledge on superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings,
protection systems such as the wing leading edge, a fraction
proposes a parameter to quantify the coating hydrophobicity
of the wing upper and lower surfaces, the windshield and the
level and presents methods to adapt available experimental
Pitot tube.
data to aircraft applications.
AIPS (Active Ice Protection System) consume power. The
A second important question is whether the durability of
aircraft industry wants to reduce energy consumption of AIPS
superhydrophobic coatings is adequate for aircraft
or replace AIPS by PIPS (Passive Ice Protection System).
applications. Most of the available coatings that can reduce
New products such as hydrophobic and superhydrophobic
AIPS power consumption show poor erosion resistance and
coatings are being developed to reduce water adherence to
therefore have no practical use. To help coating
surface. When these coatings are used on surfaces in water,
manufacturers develop coatings adapted to aircraft
they can reduce the skin friction which reduces the drag and
applications, aircraft erosion test guidelines are presented.
increase the speed.
Experiments have demonstrated that superhydrophobic
Thermal AIPS operate in evaporation mode on the wing
coatings can significantly reduce AIPS power consumption;
upper surface to eliminate ice ridge formation, and in
the savings depend on the hydrophobicity level of the
running-wet mode on the lower surface resulting in a ridge
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formation on the main body wing. The ridge height and
location is controlled by adjusting the energy on the lower
surface to control water evaporation. Can hydrophobic and
superhydrophobic coatings help to reduce cost associated to
thermal AIPS by eliminating or reducing the ridge formation
in the lower surface or by operating in the running-wet mode
on the upper surface?
Superhydrophobic coatings reduce ice adhesion of substrates
and coatings are used as icephobic, reducing the ice thickness
before shedding. Can icephobic coatings replace AIPS by
PIPS?
Based on the actual knowledge of hydrophobic,
superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings, this paper will try
to answer these two questions.
CURRENT KNOWLEDGE
Hydrophobic
When water is in contact with a solid surface, the surface is
either wet partially (hydrophobic) or totally (hydrophilic).
This phenomenon can be illustrated with a small liquid drop
resting on a flat horizontal solid surface as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Droplet on hydrophobic surface.
The droplet forms a bead on the surface. The bead shape
depends on the cohesive forces (liquid/liquid) of water
molecules and the adhesive forces (liquid/solid) resulting
from molecular attraction between the water and the substrate
molecules [1] as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Wetting.
This tendency to wet the surface can be determined by
measuring the contact angle (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Wetting.
The contact angle is the angle at which a liquid/vapor
interface meets the solid surface. The contact angle is specific
for any given system and is determined by the interactions
across the three interfaces (Solid/Liquid/Gas).
(1)
The contact angle can be seen as a result of the molecular
attraction force between water and substrate molecules, when
the attraction force is reduced, the bead tends to take a more
spherical shape due to the water surface tension.
Hydrophilic substrates are characterized by a strong adhesion
resulting in low contact angles resulting in nearly complete
wetting. As the adhesion decreases, contact angle increases,
and wetting diminishes. A coating is considered hydrophilic
when its contact angle is less than 90°, hydrophobic when its
contact angle is greater than 90° and superhydrophobic when
it is above 150°, Figure 4. For example, the contact angle of a
water bead on an aluminum surface is about 65°, which is
considered a hydrophilic surface in terms of hydrophilicity.
Figure 4. Hydrophobic and superhydrophobic coatings.
Hydrophobic coatings are low surface energy materials (low
polarity) with a surface texture composed of micro roughness
[2]. When they are applied on the top of substrate, they
reduce the electrostatic force between water molecule and
substrate like a ski wax. For example, the most common base
component used in hydrophobic coatings to reduce the
adherence surface energy are perfluorononane
[CF3(CF2)7CF3], perfluorotyltrichlorosilane
[(CF3)10(CF2)7SiCl3], polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and
politetrafluoroethylene known as PTFE, Teflon or silicon.
Another important property of a water bead resting on a
hydrophobic coating is the hysteresis which is measured with
the sessile drop technique. When a surface is adhesive, under
aerodynamic [3] or gravity forces [4] and [5], the bead
deforms to minimize is energy, this deformation corresponds
to the dynamic hysteresis which is the difference between the
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advancing and the receding contact angles as shown in
Figure 5.
Figure 5. Hysteresis from bead deformation due to wind
or gravity (tilted plate).
(2)
The higher the dynamic hysteresis, the higher the
deformation, which means that the surface is very adhesive.
Due to the water surface tension, the bead tends to take an
aerodynamic shape to minimize its internal energy which
reduces the frontal area. The dynamic hysteresis is function
of the bead size.
Static hysteresis, which is independent of the bead size, is
measured by imaging the profiles of growing and retracting
sessile drops.
Figure 6. Hysteresis from growing and retracting sessile
drops.
The advancing contact angle is the maximum contact angle
reached during the growing droplet and the receding contact
is the minimum contact angle reached during the reducing
droplet. The corresponding contact angle [6] is
(3)
Where
(4)
Super-Hydrophobic
When nano-roughness is added to hydrophobic coating
surface, the coating contact angle increases, when it reaches
150°, the coating is considered superhydrophobic. Based on
the Cassie state (Figure 7), the surface finish affects the bead
contact angle. The air captured between two adjacent
roughness elements reduces the adherence energy.
Figure 7. Liquid water on a rough surface.
Contact angle depends on the distance between adjacent
roughness peaks, their width, and their height. The contact
angle increases because of roughness, but roughness cannot
increase to infinity. They are limited by the water properties
such as surface tension and viscosity. An ideal
superhydrophobic coating has a contact angle of 180° which
means that the contact area is 0 and the frontal tends to its
maximum value resulting in an infinity area ratio.
(5)
The low erosion resistance of superhydrophobic coatings is
due to its nano-roughness. The coating surface texture is
composed of peaks with nano dimensions (order of 102 nm);
the roughness elements are so thin, despite the fact that the
material composing the roughness has high tensile strength;
the force to break the roughness elements is low due the
surface of roughness element which is small.
(6)
Icephobic
Ice adheres to surfaces of all materials, such as aluminum and
carbon-fiber. Water (H2O) molecules are polar due to the
side of hydrogen atoms which is positive and the side of the
oxygen atom which is negative. When water molecules
approach electro-negative surface such as a metallic surface,
the water molecules reorient themselves, resulting in an
attraction force which increases exponentially when the
distance decreases [7]. After freezing, the electrostatic force
is strong due to a good contact between ice and substrate that
the ice sticks on the substrate. Also, water can penetrate
between roughness elements on the substrate surface. If the
water freezes, the ice is mechanically locked between
roughness elements. The force applied to break the attraction
force is called the adhesion force. The adhesion force is the
origin of friction forces which oppose the sliding motion of
ice against the substrate. Unfortunately, the origin of friction
forces is not well understood despite experiments to measure
the adhesion of ice to substrates. Ice adherence is quantified
by the adhesion shear stress which is the applied force
divided by the surface area for which the adhesion of the ice
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to the substrate is broken. The icephobicity of coatings is
measured with IARF (Ice Adherence Ratio Factor) [8], which
is the ice adherence shear stress measured on the substrate
(aluminum, carbon-fiber, etc.) divided by the ice adherence
shear stress measured on the substrate covered by the coating.
Of course, the test setup and procedure are equally important
to the adhesive shear strength value. The adhesive shear
strength decreases linearly when temperature increases,
Figure 8, and at about some temperature limit, depending on
authors, no change with temperature is observed [13].

(7)
To understand icephobicity, experiments have been
performed by the scientific community to measure ice
adherence to materials. The most common adhesion tests
involve bending tests to produce tensile, compressive or shear
stresses at the ice/substrate interface, and axial or torsional
loading to produce normal or shear stresses at the same
interface. Centrifugal tests at constant angular speed or with
angular acceleration have also been developed to measure
adhesion shear stress. Cohesive failures and adhesive breaks
were observed in these experiments. Cohesive failure, which Figure 8. SRB aluminum adhesion shear stress as
is related to ice strength, is characterized by ruptures in the function of temperature.
grain boundaries due to grain boundary sliding and/or ice
imperfections such as cracks, inclusions or voids and internal
stress generated during the solidification process. A thin layer
Water Shedding
of ice is observed at the substrate surface when cohesive Thermal AIPS are currently used in anti-icing mode with a
failure occurs. In contrast, adhesive break is characterized by full evaporative regime on the wing upper surface and
a delamination of the ice at the ice/substrate interface without running wet regime on the lower surface. The leading edge is
any trace of ice on the substrate surface. Observations show wetted by water film, rivulets or beads when aircraft cross a
that cohesive failures occur more often under tensile stress cloud when thermal AIPS is activated. Knowing that for
and adhesive breaks occur more often under shear stress. The hydrophobic coatings, water flows easier and at faster speeds
delamination in ice occurs when the cohesive strength is because the water adherence is reduced; can the use of
lower than the adherence shear stress or the stress induced in hydrophobic coating reduce the thermal AIPS energy
the ice is higher than the shear stress induced at the ice/ consumption and eliminate runback water?
substrate interface. Unfortunately, experiments were never
performed under the same tests conditions, where the mode A study was performed in an icing wind tunnel by Fortin [14]
of failure, the type of ice and the test conditions are different on a 2D NACA profile at small scale (4 in chord) to evaluate
as well as the surface and type of substrate resulting in a large this fact. For hydrophobic coatings, when thermal AIPS is
range of ice adhesion values. The adhesion shear stress does working in running wet mode, the energy reduction was
not have a single value (Table 1), but varies between authors. about 8% and for superhydrophobic, the reduction was 10%
Most authors agree that the main parameters affecting the as shown in Figure 9.
adhesive shear stress value are: ice purity, substrate
roughness and temperature; and to a lesser extent, wind
velocity and water droplet size.

Table 1. Adhesion on aluminum.

Figure 9. Power as a function of coating hydrophobicity.

Moreover, for superhydrophobic coating, no ridge formed by

runback water was observed outside the heated protected area
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as shown in Figure 10 [14]. On the left side of Figure 10, the The dimensionless number used in the horizontal axis takes
surface is uncoated and, on the right side, the surface is into account the Capillary number which represents the effect
coated with a HIREC which is a super-hydrophobic coating. of the viscous force over the tension force and the
hydrophobicity level of the coating.

(8)
The hydrophobicity level, which characterizes the coating
hydrophobicity, was determined by summing the main force
Figure 10. Airfoil top and bottom view. acting on a bead due to the wind. The force summation on the
bead in the sliding axis when buoyancy is neglected is the
drag and the adherence forces as given
The reason why no ridge forms on superhydrophobic coatings
is not well understood, it seems that the bead is so spherical
than it slides or rolls on the surface from the protected area to (9)
the trailing edge or sheds before freezing. The water behavior
on the surface is very complex, particularly when the The drag force is given by
temperature is below the freezing point because the water
running on the surface can freeze outside the unprotected
area. The hydrophobic coating increases the bead contact
angle which reduces the bead contact area with the substrate (10)
and increases its frontal area as shown in Figure 11.
Where the drag coefficient is approximated using Stokes'
Law

(11)

And the adherence force [3] is

Figure 11. Bead behavior on substrate.

The bead behavior on hydrophobic surface is not well (12)

understood. A study by Amirfazli [3] was done in wind
tunnel at small scale on a wing to study the impact of The bead speed at constant acceleration is
hydrophobicity on the free stream speed to move a bead. The
free stream speed at bead moving decreases exponentially
with hydrophobicity and when bead diameter increases as
shown in Figure 12.
(13)
where the hydrophobicity level is the contact angle divided
by the resistance factor.

(14)
And the relative speed is

(11)

The hydrophobicity level increases when the contact angle

increases and the hysteresis decreases as shown in Figure 13
Figure 12. Free stream speed at moving. which means that a perfect superhydrophobic coating has
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contact angle of 180° and hysteresis of 0° with a
hydrophobicity level of infinity.
Figure 13. Hydrophobicity level as a function of the
contact angle and hysteresis.
For standard substrates and hydrophobic coatings, HL
increases mostly linearly (logarithmic scale), but for the
superhydrophobic coating, HL increases exponentially
(logarithmic scale) which means that for each degree gained
with superhydrophobic coating, the coating effectiveness will
increase more than hydrophobic coating.
Shedding
Shedding for frozen bead or ridge occurs when the adherence
is lost. The ice adherence is characterized by the IARF of the
icephobic coating.
Roughly, on a wing, the ice sheds when the drag force is
equal to the adhesive force. Assuming that the ridge length is
directly proportional to its height and the speed profile
follows a power law, the ridge height at shedding is
(15)
Assuming that the speed is constant and the ridge forms at
the same location for the substrate and coating with the same
factor of proportionality, the height ratio between substrate
and icephobic coating is given by
(16)
As expected, ice always forms on the surface but the ice ridge
thickness at shedding decreases with IARF value and power
factor increases as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Ridge height ratio as a function of IARF.
For hydrophobic coatings, the coating hydrophobicity
increases with the contact angle, when contact angle
increases, the surface contact between the water and the
substrate decreases reducing the adherence force and the
frontal area increases the drag force resulting in lower speed
for shedding. For example, if the ridge at shedding is 5″ on
aluminum wing, for a similar ridge forming in the same flow
condition, the ridge at shedding for a coated wing with an
icephobic coating is presented in Table 2 as a function of the
IARF and power factor.
Table 2. Height at shedding as a function of IARF and
power factor.
Using an icephobic coating can significantly reduce the ice
thickness before shedding on aircraft surfaces which will
increase the aircraft performance under icing when the
unprotected aircraft parts are coated. For protected areas, the
IARF should be high (> 300) if the aircraft aerodynamic
performance should not be affected (< 0.020 in) due to the
presence of a thin layer of ice.
On curved surfaces, an ice layer can build up in the way that
an ice cap forms such as the wing leading edge as shown in
Figure 15 or winglet, vertical or horizontal wing, pylon,
nacelle, windshield, fuselage, gear, nose, probes and antenna.
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The skin friction has very little impact on lift at low angles of
attack (< 15°) due to the sinus component. Lift is mostly a
pressure force but drag is a friction force. The drag force is
mainly dependent on skin friction which is strongly
dependent on the surface finish. Modifying the surface
roughness has two impacts: the skin friction and transition
length are affected which affect the drag force.

Knowing that hydrophobic and superhydrophobic coatings

Figure 15. Ice capping.
Due to its shape, despite the presence of icephobic coating,
ice cannot shed without external force such as a centrifugal
force generated by a propeller or mechanical force. To
eliminate the cap effect if no mechanical force is involved, a
heated parting strip at the leading edge is needed to break the
ice cap as shown in Figure 16.
modify the substrate surface roughness, this characteristic
should be measured.
Ultraviolet Degradation, Erosion
Resistance, and Hardness
Currently, no criteria to evaluate coating damage or erosion
under aircraft flight conditions were defined. In this section
some guidelines are given to develop such as criteria.

During an aircraft's lifetime, coatings applied on aircraft

surface will be submitted to ultraviolet radiation and to
insects, birds and solid particles such as dust, volcanic ash,
sand, gravel, ice crystals and hails or to liquid particles such
as water droplets from rain, drizzle and clouds. The
ultraviolet radiation will degrade the coating and birds,
insects and solid particles will dust, erode or damage the
coating and liquid particles will erode the coating.

Figure 16. Ice capping with parting strip. A good starting point is to define a typical flight mission as
shown in Figure 17.

UNKNOWNS
Effect on Lift and Drag
Hydrophobic, superhydrophobic or icephobic coatings
modify the substrate surface roughness which can have a
positive or negative impact on the lift and drag forces.

The lift is given by

(17)

And the drag by

Figure 17. Typical aircraft mission.

(18) The aircraft waits at the gate for about 20 minutes (preflight),
leaves and taxis for 10 minutes, takes off and climbs reaching
Where the pressure coefficient is 200 knots (calibrated air speed) in about 20 minutes,
accelerates, climbs again to reach cruise altitude, cruises at
about 250 knots for about 2 or 6 hours, descends and
decelerates to about 200 knots in 10 minutes, holds at about
(19) the same speed for few minutes to a maximum time of 45
minutes, descends, approaches and lands in about 15 minutes,
And the skin friction coefficient is taxis and parks at the gate for about 20 minutes for a typical
flight time of 4 to 8 hours.

During the flight, the majority of particles that aircraft is

(20) expected to encounter occurs at altitudes below 25000 ft.
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At ground, park or during taxi or takeoff, insects, birds, solid
particles such as dust, sand, gravel, volcanic ash, snow, wet
snow and hail and liquid particles such as water droplets from
rain, drizzle and fog can be expected. At altitude below
25000 ft, insects, birds, solid particles such as dust, volcanic
ash, ice crystals, snow, wet snow and hail and liquid particles
such as water droplet from rain, drizzle and cloud are expected.
At altitudes above 25000 ft, rain, snow and ice crystals are
expected. Due to the kinetic energy and hardness, bird and
solid particles can damage at impact the coating surface if the
coating hardness is lower then the particle hardness or, solid
and liquid particles can erode the coating surface due to
multiple impacts.
The erosion resistance test due to liquid particle should be
measured by a method which is representative of ground (low
speed) and flight conditions (high speed).
Aircraft can encounter rain at ground of about 15% of flight
time which is the time that the aircraft stays on ground during
a flight of 8 hours. During flight, it is about 6% when holding
is not taken into consideration, with 20 minutes holding, the
percentage increases to 10%. At ground, if the take off is not
considered, the maximum wind speed is 50 knots and during
flight at altitude below 25000 ft, the speed is about 200 knots.
The higher liquid water content expected at ground is 0.3
g/m3, but typical liquid water content is about 0.15 g/m3 with
a typical MVD of 2.7 mm for rain, and, during flight, the
maximum liquid water content expected is 2.9 g/m3, but the
typical liquid water is about 0.35 g/m with a typical MVD of
20 μm for takeoff.
The chance to encounter icing during a mission is given in
the aircraft handbook [15]. At holding altitude of 15000 ft,
which is about the average altitude between ground and
25000 ft, the chance of encountering icing is 18%. At ground
the chance of encountering liquid water is estimated
arbitrarily to 20%. At altitude above 25000 ft, the chance of
encountering liquid particles is considered negligible.
A business jet flies 500 hours per year, assuming that a
typical mission is 9 hours, the number of mission per year for
a business jet is about 56, and the expected number of
mission with icing at 15000 ft is 10.
A typical erosion test to measure hydrophobic coating
degradation due to liquid particle should reproduce the
conditions presented in Table 3 for business jets when 22
minutes of holding is taken into consideration. When the
mission is 4.5 hours, the erosion test duration is twice.
Table 3. Typical erosion test for liquid particle.
The coating should be eroded with particles similar to particle
found in the atmosphere to have the same kinetic energy at
impact. If not, the kinetic energy at impact should be matched
to respect the erosion degradation due to particles with the
following equation
(21)
The erosion time can be reduced by increasing the liquid
water content to accelerate the erosion phenomena. The
equivalent time in terms of aircraft flight can be calculated by
matching the collected particle mass.
(22)
Ash particles, which have a maximum diameter of 50 μm,
and dust particles, which have a maximum diameter of 150
μm, can penetrate in the roughness of the coating thereby
decreasing its performance. This impact should be evaluated.
Solid particles are encountered less frequently than liquid
particles but they can erode the coating. An erosion test to
evaluate the maximum resistance to erosion from ash
(maximum diameter of 50 μm), dust (maximum diameter of
150 μm), sand (diameter from 150 to 850 μm), ice crystals
(up to 8 mm) and hail (MVD of 16 mm) particles should be
done similarly to water.
The hydrophobic, superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings
should resist without significant damage due to solid particle
impacts. The coating hardness should be measured under
bird, gravel and hail impact. The speed impact for gravel is
the takeoff speed and for bird and hail are at 200 knots. The
maximum gravel diameter expected is 0.25″ and for hail, the
maximum diameter expected during flight is 2″.
Superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings should resist
without significant degradation due to UV. During their
lifetime, aircraft will be submitted to Ultraviolet radiation
during about 4000 hours per year.
To evaluate the coating resistance to manipulation when the
airplane is in maintenance, hardness, peel up, pencil, strip or
scratch tests should be developed. The test selected should be
representative of technician manipulation during
maintenance.
Discussion
Thermal AIPS are used to protect the wings leading edge
from icing. But this system consumes power. New products
such as hydrophobic and superhydrophobic coatings have
being developed to reduce water adherence to surfaces. Based
on the current knowledge, the possibility of using
hydrophobic or superhydrophobic coatings combined with
thermal AIPS or use of icephobic coating as PIPS were
evaluated.
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Thermal AIPS operates in evaporation mode on the wing
upper surface to eliminate the ridge formation and in running-
wet mode on the lower surface resulting in a ridge formation
on the main wing body. The ridge height and location is
controlled by adjusting the energy in the lower surface to
control water evaporation.
Can superhydrophobic coatings be combined with thermal
AIPS to help reduce thermal AIPS power consumption in
evaporative or running wet modes and to reduce or eliminate
the ridge formation?
It has been shown at small scale that the ridge formed on the
main wing body in running wet mode by runback water is
eliminated when a superhydrophobic coating is used on the
wing. Beads seem to run from the leading edge to the trailing
edge without freezing on the surface. If this result can be
confirmed at flight size scale, superhydrophobic coatings can
help to eliminate ice ridge formation. If the ridge is
eliminated by the superhydrophobic coating, thermal AIPS
can operate in running wet mode rather than evaporation
mode on the slat upper surface which would reduce the
energy consumption of the thermal AIPS up to 20% for cold
day and 80% for hot day. In addition, the energy gains in the
lower surface which operates in running wet mode are lower,
around 10%. For this case, the coating becomes the center
piece for certification; it must be proven for
sustainability.
An ideal hydrophobic coating has the higher contact angle
and lower hysteresis which means lower skin friction
between water and skin. To select the superhydrophobic
coatings, the hydrophobicity level proposed in this paper can
help to select the coating. The hydrophobicity level
quantified the impact of the contact angle and hysteresis on
the water bead behavior on surface. The superhydrophobic
coatings with the higher hydrophobicity level will be the best
coating.
If the erosion resistance meets the aircraft industry needs,
superhydrophobicity could, in the near future, be used to
eliminate the ice ridge formation due to runback water on the
main wing body. Moreover, if no credit is taken for
certification, Transport Canada and FAA could be open to the
use of superhydrophobic coatings under some special
conditions such as coating or coating degradation will not
affect the aircraft performance or decrease anti-icing fluid
performance.
Superhydrophobic coatings reduce ice adhesion on surfaces
and coatings are used as icephobic, reducing the thickness of
ice deposit before shedding. The IARF is used to characterize
the icephobicity of coatings.
Some aerodynamics parts are unprotected which means that
ice accretes on it, such as the winglet, vertical tail, horizontal
tail, nacelle, pylon, nose, fuselage, gear and antenna. The
aircraft is certified with ice on these parts, protection of those
parts with icephobic coatings can increase the aircraft
performance during icing conditions due to ice elimination or
ice thickness reduction.
If no credit is taken from icephobic coatings for certification
and if the erosion resistance is encountered, the use of
icephobic coatings on unprotected aircraft parts is
conceivable in the short term. In other words, it is not
confirmed that the coating will reduce the ice thickness
before shedding on all parts as ice forms on a convex surface;
ice capping is produced, if the central part of the ice cap is
not broken, the ice will not shed. Unless an external force
such as centrifugal force generated by propeller can shed ice.
Otherwise, a mechanical force such as electro-repulsive
system or thermal force such as parting strip is needed to
break the ice, which makes the icephobic coatings
implementation more complex.
Can icephobic coatings be used as PIPS and replace AIPS to
reduce or eliminate power consumption associated to AIPS?
Using icephobic coatings to replace AIPS at the leading
edge is more complex and is very long-term because coatings
must have proven long lifetime before they would be on
leading edges and should have IARF, around 300 or 500
because at this location, any roughness affects the
aerodynamic performance, especially at take-off. In addition,
because of capping a parting strip is essential at the leading
edge to break the ice cap. Of course, the parting strip will
consume less energy than AIPS.
The ideal superhydrophobic coating would be easy to repair
when it is broken or replace when its life is terminated like a
paint if the coating is applied on large surface. Also, the drag
and weight generated by superhydrophobic or icephobic
coatings should not exceed that of paint.
Based only on air moisture, icing occurs less than 23% of the
time during an aircraft mission; the fuel consumption due to
its use is generally low compared to the fuel transported in
case of the use of the AIPS. The greatest advantage of using
superhydrophobic or icephobic coatings is the weight
reduction of the AIPS system due to its power reduction and
the reduction of the fuel quantity transported to power it.
Also, the generator and wire will have smaller size resulting
in a lower system weight. The payload can be significant.
Currently, no erosion test addressing aircraft industry needs
in terms of erosion resistance is available to evaluate
superhydrophobic or icephobic coatings. For example, for
liquid particles, a business jet with missions of 9 hours each
encounters a cloud in flight 7 hours per year, and 10 hours or
rain per year when on the ground. These times do not include
the period associated with an aircraft parked on ground
between missions. Solid particles such as dust, sand, ash, ice
crystals and hail should be tested similarly to liquid particles
in terms of erosion. Bird and solid particles such as gravel
and hail should be tested for impact.
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Coating resistance to UV should be evaluated and its
degradation should not affect significantly its performance.
SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS
Currently, experiments demonstrate that superhydrophobic
coatings can help to reduce the power needed for AIPS. Some
superhydrophobic coatings used as icephobic coatings can
reduce ice adhesion which reduces the ice thickness at
shedding, but the ice thickness at shedding still affect aircraft
performance.
There have been numerous attempts to develop durable
superhydrophobic coatings to reduce water adhesion to
surface or icephobic coatings to eliminate ice adhesion to
surface, but all of them are not applicable on aircraft because
none has been proven such that their resistance to erosion
addresses the needs of the aircraft industry.
Erosion resistance is the biggest challenge for the coating
industries. Superhydrophobic and icephobic coatings should
be developed to address it. Also, icephobic coatings are not
yet proven in terms of ice thickness at shedding. Icephobic
coatings should be developed to address resistance to erosion.
10. Itagaki, I., Mechanical Ice Release Processes: Self-
shedding of Accreted Ice From High Speed Rotors CRREL
Report 83-26, October, 1983.
11. Laforte, C., Déformations à la rupture adhésive par
traction flexion et torsion d'un substrat givre, Thèse de
doctorat, Département de Génie Mécanique, Université du
Québec à Chicoutimi, 2008.
12. Fortin G., Beisswenger A. and Perron J., Centrifuge
Adhesion Test to Evaluate Icephobic Coatings, American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2th Atmospheric
and Space Environment, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August,
2-5, 2010.
13. Fortin G. and Perron J., Spinning Rotor Blade Tests in
Icing Wind Tunnel, American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, 1th Atmospheric and Space Environment, San
Antonio, Texas, USA, June, 22-25, 2009.
14. Fortin, G., Adomou, M., and Perron, J., “Experimental
Study of Hybrid Anti-Icing Systems Combining
Thermoelectric and Hydrophobic Coatings,” SAE Technical
Paper 2011-38-0003, 2011, doi:10.4271/2011-38-0003.
15. Aircraft Icing Handbook Volume 1, Federal Aviation
Administration, 1991

REFERENCES
CONTACT INFORMATION
1. Petrenko, V.F., Peng. S., Reduction of ice adhesion to
Guy Fortin
metal by using self-assembling monolayers (SAMs),
guy.fortin@aero.bombardier.com
Canadian journal of physics, Vol. 81, pp. 387-393, 2002.
2. Fortin G. and Perron J., First Step in an Ice Physic
Adhesion Models to Predict Shear Stress at Shedding,
DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS
3. Milne A. J. B. and Amirfazli A., Drop Shedding by Shear a - Acceleration, m/s
Flow for Hydrophilic to Superhydrophobic Surfaces, ARoughness - Surface, m2
Langmuir Article, American Chemical Society, 2009.
AContact - Water surface in contact with substrate, m2
4. Quere D., Azzopardi M.-J. and Delattre L., Drops at Rest
on a Tilted Plane, Langmuir, American Chemical Society, AFrontal - Water surface perpendicular to air, m2
1998. Ca - Capillary number
5. Nilsson M. A. and Rothstein J. P., Using sharp transitions cf - Skin friction coefficient
in contact angle hysteresis to move, deflect, and sort droplets
cp - Pressure coefficient
on a superhydrophobic surface, American Institute of
Physics, http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4723866, 2012. CD - Drag coefficient
6. Tadmor R., Line Energy and the Relation between D - Drag force, N
Advancing, Receding, and Young Contact Angles, American Dbead - Bead diameter, m
Chemical Society, 2004. DLN - Dimensionless number
7. Fortin G. and Perron J., Ice Adhesion Models to Predict Eparticle - Particle kinetic energy, J
Shear Stress at Shedding, Special Issue on Ice adhesion of the
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Volume 26, Issue 4-5, 2012. Fadherence - Adherence force, N
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Centrifuge Adhesion Test, in The 11th International HL - Hydrophobicity level
Workshop on Atmospheric Icing on Structures. 2005:
IARF - Ice Adherence Ratio Factor
Montreal, Quebec (Canada).
L - Lift force, N
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p. 59, 1987. m - Mass, kg
 Downloaded from SAE International by Brought to you by the University of Texas Libraries, Sunday, August 05, 2018

mparticle - Particle mass, kg

MVD - Median volumetric diameter, m
p - Pressure, Pa
p∞ - Free stream pressure, Pa
Re - Reynolds number
Sy - Yield strength, Pa
t - Time, s
ubead - Bead speed, m/s
U∞ - Free stream speed, m/s
Urel - Droplet relative speed, m/s
α - Angle of attack
β - Collection efficiency
δ - Boundary layer
γSolid-Gaz - Surface tension between solid and gas, N/m
γSolid-Liquid - Surface tension between solid and liquid, N/m
γLiquid-Gaz - Surface tension between liquid and gas, N/m
γwater - Water surface tension, N/m
ρair - Density of air, kg/m3
θA - Advancing angle, °
θc - Contact angle, °
θR - Receding angle, °
Δθ - Hysteresis, °
τadh-Coating - Adherence shear stress, Pa
τadh-Substrate - Adherence shear stress, Pa
µair - Dynamic viscosity of air, Pa s

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