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Numerical Investigation on Super-cooled Large

Droplet Icing of Fan Rotor Blade in Jet Engine

Article in Journal of Thermal Science October 2014

DOI: 10.1007/s11630-014-0726-2

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Journal of Thermal Science Vol.23, No.5 (2014) 432437

DOI: 10.1007/s11630-014-0726-2 Article ID: 1003-2169(2014)05-0432-06

Numerical Investigation on Super-cooled Large Droplet Icing of Fan Rotor

Blade in Jet Engine

Keisuke Isobe1, Masaya Suzuki2, Makoto Yamamoto3

1. Graduate School of Mechanical Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, 6-3-1 Niijuku, Katsushika-ku, Tokyo,
125-8585, Japan
2. Aviation Program Group, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), 7-44-1 Jindaiji Higashi-machi, Chofu-shi,
Tokyo, 182-8522, Japan
3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tokyo University of Science, 6-3-1 Niijuku, Katsushika-ku, Tokyo, 125-8585,
Japan

Science Press and Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Icing (or ice accretion) is a phenomenon in which super-cooled water droplets impinge and accrete on a body. It
is well known that ice accretion on blades and vanes leads to performance degradation and has caused severe ac-
cidents. Although various anti-icing and deicing systems have been developed, such accidents still occur. There-
fore, it is important to clarify the phenomenon of ice accretion on an aircraft and in a jet engine. However, flight
tests for ice accretion are very expensive, and in the wind tunnel it is difficult to reproduce all climate conditions
where ice accretion can occur. Therefore, it is expected that computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which can es-
timate ice accretion in various climate conditions, will be a useful way to predict and understand the ice accretion
phenomenon. On the other hand, although the icing caused by super-cooled large droplets (SLD) is very danger-
ous, the numerical method has not been established yet. This is why SLD icing is characterized by splash and
bounce phenomena of droplets and they are very complex in nature. In the present study, we develop an ice ac-
cretion code considering the splash and bounce phenomena to predict SLD icing, and the code is applied to a fan
rotor blade. The numerical results with and without the SLD icing model are compared. Through this study, the
influence of the SLD icing model is numerically clarified.

Keywords: Ice Accretion, Fan Rotor Blade, Super-cooled Large Droplet, Multi-physics Simulation

Introduction crashed just after take-off in a blizzard on January 13th,

Icing (or ice accretion) is a phenomenon where super-
cooled water droplets impinge and accrete on a body. Ice
accretion occurs on airplanes, windmills, electric lines at
cold districts and so on. It has caused various accidents,
especially in the air transport. One of the most notable
accidents is Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 that
1982. This caused 78 deaths. Another instance of a crash
in flight due to ice accretion occurred on October 31st,
1994. This was American Eagle Flight 4184. This ATR-
72-212, a twin turboprop airliner, was in a holding pat-
tern around Chicago OHare International Airport be-
cause of weather delays. While holding, it endured free-
zing rain, a condition where super-cooled water droplets

Received: July 2014

Makoto Yamamoto: Professor
www.springerlink.com
Keisuke Isobe et al. Numerical Investigation on Super-cooled Large Droplet Icing of Fan Rotor Blade in Jet Engine
impacted on the wings, causing a rapid ice buildup. This
led to lose the control. The most recent accident is Con-
tinental Flight 3407, a Bombardier DHC8 on February
12th, 2009. It crashed because of using an auto pilot sys-
tem under an icing condition, causing 50 deaths. Al-
though various anti-icing and deicing systems have been
developed, these accidents still occur. Therefore, it is
important to clarify the ice accretion phenomena. The
estimation of ice accretion is necessary to avoid accidents
and useful to reduce the cost and the design time in the
design phase of aircrafts and jet engines. However, the
experimental investigations are very difficult, because it
is not easy to set ice accretion conditions repeatedly in an
icing wind tunnel and reproduce the various climate con-
ditions. Therefore, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
which can estimate the ice accretion in the various cli-
mate conditions will be a useful way to predict ice accre-
tion phenomenon.
Some accidents due to ice accretion are detected to be
caused from super-cooled large droplets (so-called SLD).
In fact, the cause of the accident which happened in 1994
as mentioned above was the ice accretion of SLD. It is
well known that the characteristic phenomena of SLD are
splash and bounce of impinging droplets. Splash is the
phenomenon that a large droplet breaks up when it im-
pinges on a surface, and a part of the water mass sticks
on the impingement area and the remaining water mass
rebounds from the surface. Bounce is the phenomenon
that a large droplet takes a perfectly elastic collision at
the surface and the water mass is completely conserved.
The ice accretion of SLD has been modeled by a lot of
researchers, but the phenomena and the models have not
been validated sufficiently. Therefore, we have to devel-
op and validate the suitable model for the SLD icing.
In the present study, we develop a numerical code to
predict SLD icing taking into account the splash and
bounce phenomena, and the code is applied to a rotor
blade of a jet engine under an SLD icing condition. The
numerical results with/without the SLD model are com-
pared. We confirm that with the SLD model, the volume
of ice near the hub is larger than the result without the
SLD model. Through this study, the influence of the ic-
ing model on SLD ice accretion in a jet engine is numer-
ically clarified.
Computational Method
Algorithm
The algorithm employed in this study is shown in
Figure 1. At first, we calculate the turbulent flow field
around a clean blade. Next, we obtain the distribution of
droplets impingement on the blade surface by the droplet
trajectory calculation. Then, the ice thickness is com-
puted by the thermodynamic calculation. Based on the
433
local ice thickness, an ice shape is reproduced. Finally,
the computational grid is re-generated. The procedure is
repeated until the prescribed termination time of ice ac-
cretion is reached.
Turbulent flow field
The flow field is assumed to be two-dimensional,
compressible and fully turbulent. The governing equa-
tions are Favre-averaged continuity, Navier-Stokes and
energy equations. The standard k- turbulence model
(Launder and Spalding, [1]) is applied to estimate turbu-
lence effects. Since the rotating frame of reference is
used, Coriolis force and the centrifugal force are added in
the Navier-Stokes equations.
The governing equations are discretized using the
second-order upwind TVD scheme (Yee and Harten, [2])
for the inviscid terms, the second-order central difference
scheme for the viscous terms, and the 4-stage Runge-
Kutta method for time integration.
Fig. 1 Algorithm of ice accretion simulation
Droplet trajectory
Droplet trajectory computation, based on the Lagran-
gian approach, is performed to obtain the droplet collec-
tion efficiency on a blade. In this computation, we set the
following assumptions:
The droplet is solid and spherical.
The droplet does not break up before impact to a
wall.
The droplets do not interact with each other.
The droplets do not affect on the flow field (i.e.
one-way coupling).
The initial droplet velocity is equal to the gas
velocity at the release point.
The equation of droplet motion is
dU d 3 f 1
CD U U
dt 4 d dd r r (1)
2 U d rd
434 J. Therm. Sci., Vol.23, No.5, 2014

where t is the time, Ud is the droplet velocity, Ur is the surface tension and viscosity, d is the diameter of a drop-
relative velocity between the gas and the droplet, dd is the let, Vn is the droplet velocity normal to the wall, is the
droplet diameter, and f and d are the gas and the droplet angle of attack against the blade surface. The subscript
density, respectively. The drag coefficient CD is ex- after denotes the droplet condition after impingement.
pressed as: The droplet behavior is judged by the parameter KL in Eq.
(7). If KL is lower than 200, the droplet sticks on the im-
CD
24
Red

1 0.15 Re d 0.687 (2) pingement area, and if KL is higher than 200, the droplet
radii ratio of impingement to rebound (i.e. secondary
where Red is the Reynolds number of the droplet based droplet) is calculated by Eq. (8). Next, if radii ratio is
on the diameter and the relative velocity between the gas lower than 0.05, the droplet sticks on the impingement
and the droplet. area, and if the droplet radii ratio is not less than 0.05 but
not more than 1, the droplet splashes, and if the droplet
Thermodynamics
radii ratio is larger than 1, the droplet bounds. When a
The thermodynamics model is the extend Messinger droplet is judged as splash, the droplet is divided into
model [3], based on Stefan problem which is a generic small secondary droplets which have different diameters.
method of phase change. The governing equations can be In the present study, the only one droplet with a typical
written as follows; diameter calculated by Eq. (8) is traced.
Ti ki 2Ti The mass ratio of the droplet before splash to the sec-
(3) ondary droplet is calculated by Eq. (9), the ratios of the
t i C pi y 2
tangential velocities and the normal velocities are given
Tw k w 2Tw by Eqs. (10) and (11), respectively. In these equations, m
(4)
t w C pw y 2 is the mass at the time of impingement, mloss is the mass
loss of droplet, V is the droplet velocity, and the subscript
hi h
i w w mim min me, s (5) t denotes the tangential direction and n denotes the nor-
t t mal direction to the impinging surface.
h T T mloss
i LF i ki i kw w (6) 0.7(1 sin )
t y y m (9)
where Eqs. (3) and (4) are the energy equations of ice 1 exp 0.0092( K L 200)
and water layers respectively, Eq. (5) is the mass conser-
Vt , after
vation, Eq. (6) is the phase change condition at ice/water 1.075 0.0025 (10)
interface. And , T, k, Cp and h denote the density, tem- Vt
perature, thermal conductivity, specific heat and thick- Vn, after
ness respectively. The subscript i and w indicate ice and 0.3 0.002 (11)
Vn
water respectively. t is the time, y is the normal direction
When the judgment is splash, the mass loss of drop-
to a wall. mim, min and me,s are the mass flow rate of im-
let is regarded as the mass of secondary droplet and the
pinged droplets, runback in and evaporate (or sublima-
remaining mass of droplet sticks on the impingement
tion). LF is the latent heat of water freezing. We can de- area. When the judgment is bound, the droplet radii
termine local ice thickness by solving these equations. ratio is 1, and the mass loss of droplet is 0. When the
secondary droplet impinges on the blade surface, the be-
Models of splash and bounce of droplet
havior of droplet is judged again.
In this study, the SLD ice accretion model proposed by It should be noted that this SLD icing model was suc-
Wright [4] is adopted. This model is a modification of the cessfully applied to a NACA0012 airfoil under SLD ic-
SLD model proposed by Trujillo [5]. When a droplet ing conditions.
impinges on a blade surface, the behavior of droplet
(bounce, splash and stick) can be estimated by Eqs (7) Computational Conditions
and (8).
18
The computational target is the fan blade of a jet en-
0.859 Oh w Re 5w 4 w
LWC gine. The jet engine used in this study has 24 rotor blades.
KL (7)
For simplicity, only one rotor blade is simulated consi-
sin 5 4
dering the geometrical periodicity. The operating condi-
d after
d

8.72 exp 0.0281 Oh w Re5w 4 (8) tions computed in this study are summarized in Table 1.
The total pressure, total temperature, and Mach number
where Ohw=w/(wwd)1/2Rew=dVnw/w. and are the at the inlet are averaged from the tip to the hub. The
Keisuke Isobe et al. Numerical Investigation on Super-cooled Large Droplet Icing of Fan Rotor Blade in Jet Engine 435

droplet trajectory computation is conducted for 1 million one is with the SLD icing model (w/ model case) and the
droplets randomly and spatially distributed at the com- other is without the SLD icing model (w/o model case),
putational upstream boundary. In the preliminary study, to clarify the effect of the SLD icing model on the re-
we found that the local water distribution for 1 million sults.
droplets is nearly the same as the result for 1.5 million The boundary conditions are imposed as follows. The
droplets. Therefore, we consider that the 1 million drop- total pressure, total temperature, and flow angle are spe-
lets case is convergent and used 1 million droplets in the cified, and the Mach number is extrapolated at the up-
trajectory computations. stream inflow boundary. The inflow turbulent kinetic
energy is assumed by the 0.1% turbulence of the free
Table 1 Computational conditions stream. Adiabatic, no slip, and wall function boundary
Rotation Tip Speed [m/s] 300.0
conditions are imposed on the stationary and rotating
surfaces. On the exit, the static pressure is specified.
Inlet Total Pressure [kPa] 101.3
Inlet Total Temperature [K] 253.15
Outlet Static Pressure [kPa] 117.6
3
Liquid Qater Content [g/m ] 1.0
Droplets Diameter [m] 100
Exposure Time [s] 1.0

We used a 2-level overlapping grid system to enhance

the higher accuracy of the computation around a blade.
Figure 2 shows the domain of main grid (shown in blue
line) and the sub grid (shown in red). The main grid over
the entire domain consists of 18131121 grid points,
and the sub grid around the blade consists of 22131
Fig. 2 Computational domain and grid
121 grid points. The total number of grid points is about
1.5 million. The grid dependence study was conducted
with a finer grid whose total grid number was about 2.3
million. Through the study, we confirmed that any re- Computational Results and Discussion
markable difference cannot be found, especially the pre-
dicted icing area and ice volume. Note that for this rotor Droplet impingement distribution
blade, the relative coordinate system is used. We did not Figures 3 exhibits the droplet impingement distribu-
consider the tip clearance region because ice accretion tions (i.e. impingement frequency) before ice accretion
mainly occurs around the hub. Two cases are simulated, on the pressure side (Fig.3(a)) and suction side (Fig.3(b)),

Fig. 3 Droplet impingement distributions before icing

436
respectively. In addition, the left figure shows the result
of the case with the SLD icing model, and the right figure
shows the result of the case without the SLD icing model.
From these figures, we can find that most droplets im-
pinge on the pressure surface and the leading edge, and
the droplets do not impinge near the tip and on the suc-
tion surface except around the leading edge near the hub
(see the enlarged views). The reason why these characte-
ristics are obtained comes from the droplet trajectories.
That is, the SLD tends to go straight because of the large
inertia. Furthermore, on the pressure surface, the im-
pinging droplet number with the SLD icing model near
the hub is apparently larger than that without the SLD
icing model. This difference comes from the splash and
rebound effects of droplets. The detail of droplet trajecto-
ries will be described in the next sub-section droplet
trajectory.
Accreted ice thickness
Figures 4(a) and 4(b) shows the ice thickness distribu-
tions on the pressure side and the suction side, respec-
Fig. 4 Ice thickness distribution
Fig. 5 Droplet trajectory and mass ratio
J. Therm. Sci., Vol.23, No.5, 2014
tively. The color corresponds to the ice thickness. Again,
the left figure is for the result with the SLD icing model,
and the right one is for the result without the SLD icing
model. The enlarged view around the hub is also indi-
cated for each figure. It is apparent that ice layer is
formed on the leading edge and the pressure surface. The
icing area roughly reflects the droplet impingement dis-
tribution shown in Fig.3. Interestingly, the ice around the
leading edge near the hub is the thickest. Comparing the
results with and without the SLD icing model, we can
confirm that the ice thickness predicted with the SLD
icing model is much larger than that without the SLD
icing model. The maximum ice thickness at the exposure
time of 4 sec. is about 1.64 mm. Since ice layer makes
roughness on the blade surface, it is easily expected that
this ice thickness can have a serious influence on the
aerodynamic performance of the fan rotor blade.
Droplet trajectory and mass ratio
Figure 5 exhibits the typical droplet trajectories. This
figure is viewed from the pressure side. We injected 100
 Keisuke Isobe et al. Numerical Investigation on Super-cooled Large Droplet Icing of Fan Rotor Blade in Jet Engine
droplets into the flow field and picked up the droplets
that splash and bound on the wall. The color corresponds
to the droplet mass ratio which is defined as the ratio of
the secondary droplet mass to the initial droplet mass.
Additionally, Figure 5(b) indicates an enlarged view
around the leading edge near the hub. From these figures,
we can clearly observe that the droplets fly straightly and
a lot of droplets splash on the pressure surface and on the
nose cone of the jet engine. The droplets that splash near
the tip go downstream without second impact, while the
droplets that splash on the mid-chord to the nose cone
reduces the mass due to splash and impinge to the pres-
sure surface of the blade. These secondary droplet im-
pingements change the ice thickness distribution. There-
fore, we can confirm that the splash and bounce models
are very important in predicting SLD icing phenomena.
Concluding Remarks
We simulated SLD icing phenomena on the fan rotor
blade of a jet engine with and without the splash and
bounce model (i.e. SLD icing model), in order to clarify
the influence of the model on SLD icing simulation in a
jet engine. The knowledge obtained in this study is de-
scribed below:
Under the SLD icing condition, ice accretion oc-
curs on the pressure surface and the leading edge,
while it does not occur on the suction surface.
Thick ice layer is formed on the leading edge and
the mid-chord of the pressure surface near the
hub.
The large droplets fly straightly because of the
large inertia. Splash and bounce phenomena are
View publication stats
437
observed on the pressure surface and the nose
cone.
The rebounded particles reduce the mass due to
splash event and the rebounded particles make
the ice thickness distribution.
The splash and bounce models are necessary to
predict SLD icing phenomena.
In our future work, we are planning to simulate further
SLD icing phenomena in a jet engine under different op-
erating conditions.
References
[1] Veillard, X., Habashi, W.G., FENSAP-ICE:Ice accretion
in Multi-stage jet Engine, AIAA 2009-4158, 2009
[2] Launder, B.E., Spalding, D.B., The Numerical Compu-
tation of Turbulent Flows, Computer Methods in Ap-
plied Mechanics and Eng., Vol. 3 No. 2, 269289, 1974.
[3] Yee, H.C., Upwind and Symmetric Shock-capturing
Schemes, NASA-TM-89464, 1987.
[4] Myers, T.G., Extension to the Messinger Model for Air-
craft Icing, AIAA Journal, Vol. 39 No. 2, 2001.
[5] Wright, B.W., Potapczuk, M.G., Levinson L.H., Com-
parison of LEWICE and GlennICE in SLD Regime,
NASA TM 215174, 124, 2008.
[6] Trujillo, M.F., Mathews, W.S., Modeling and Experi-
ment of Impingement and Atomization of a Liquid Spray
on a Wall, International Journal of Engines, Vol. 1,
87105, 1999.
[7] Anderson, D.N., Tsao, J.C., Additional Results of Iceac-
cretion Scaling at SLD Conditions, NASA CR213850,
111, 2005.