A Process For Ice Detector Placement Using 3-d Eulerian Droplet Impingement Analysis

Ice detectors invoke an aircraft's ice protection systems, which reduce the risks of flight into known icing conditions. A process has been developed to place ice detectors on aircraft using high fidelity computational icing tools. Three-dimensional Eulerian droplet impingement analysis is used to determine the necessary ice detector height and location required to achieve full functionality. This method is applied to the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft for validation against both tunnel and flight test data. When compared to icing tunnel test data, computational results for the volume of ice accreted on an antenna were within ten percent, validating the computational tools. Flight test data also provided validation of the ice detector placement method, when both flight test and computational results confirmed that one particular ice detector was ineffective during a flight in known icing conditions.