ICE GENESIS

The goal of ICE GENESIS was to create the next generation of 3D icing engineering tools (numerical simulation tools and upgraded test capabilities) addressing supercooled liquid icing (including supercooled large drops) and snow for safe, efficient, right first time, and cost-effective design and certification of future aircraft, rotorcraft and engines. 

The ICE GENESIS consortium brought together 30 partners from 9 countries (France, Austria, Italy, UK, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and Japan). The aviation authorities FAA and EASA were also involved as members of the Advisory Board.

ICE GENESIS has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under agreement No 824310.

Current methodologies to characterise ice accretion and its effects on air vehicle components and power plant systems are mainly based on empirical methods, comparative analysis, 2D simulation and experience from in-service products.

Due to the associated uncertainties, cautious design margins are used, leading to non-optimized solutions. As future air vehicle and propulsive system architectures introduce radical design changes, it will no longer be possible to rely on the existing design methodologies, making future development extremely difficult to achieve efficiently and within short cycles.

These difficulties are increased by the changes in certification regulations, in particular for Supercooled Large Drops (SLD). Snow also remains a challenge, especially for turbine engines and Auxiliary Power Units.

In this context, the top-level objective of ICE GENESIS was to provide the European aeronautical industry with a validated new generation of 3D icing engineering tools (numerical simulation and test capabilities) addressing Appendix C, Appendix O (Supercooled Large Drops) and Snow conditions, for safe, efficient and cost-effective design and certification of future aircraft and rotorcraft.

• Objective 1: Improve and validate existing 3D numerical tools to predict ice accretion in Appendix C, Appendix O and Snow conditions.
• Objective 2: Upgrade and calibrate icing wind tunnels to allow reproduction of:
  • Supercooled Large Drops in Freezing Drizzle (FZDZ) conditions.
  • Snow icing conditions
  • Additionally, to assess the potential of current icing wind tunnels to represent Supercooled Large Drops in Freezing Rain (FZRA) conditions.
• Objective 3: Build a large-scale experimental database on representative 3D configurations to be used as a solid reference (“ground truth”) for future numerical tools validation.

The main outcomes of ICE GENESIS are summarised hereafter. More details on all achievements can be found in the public deliverables.

Supercooled Liquid Icing

Efforts on supercooled liquid icing were focused on the upgrade and validation of test facilities for SLD conditions and on the improvement of numerical tools to perform 3D icing simulations and model SLD conditions. 

• Test Facilities: Icing wind tunnel test capabilities in FZDZ conditions were upgraded at CIRA (Italy) and RTA (Austria). A preliminary capability for FZRA was even demonstrated at RTA. These upgrades provide more possibilities of testing and pave the way to further improvements that will enable their use as a comprehensive certification means of compliance.
• Numerical Tools: Major progress on numerical tools for liquid icing was achieved. Some improvement axes were also identified to further mature the tools with SLD models in order to use them as certification means of compliance. 

Snow

Efforts on snow were focused on the characterization of falling snow conditions, on the upgrade and validation of test facilities and on the improvement of numerical tools.

• Falling Snow Characterization: Falling snow conditions were characterized through field campaigns in which valuable data was gathered thanks to developed synergies between the flight test aircraft, ground in-situ measurements and ground remote sensing.
• Test Facilities: Snow generation systems were developed and calibrated in RTA (Austria) and NRC (Canada) wind tunnel facilities, so as to reproduce natural-like falling and blowing snow conditions. 
• Numerical Tools: Several physical phenomena related to snow were modeled, which provide major improvement compared to the state of the art. It paves the way to further developments to obtain an industrial snow simulation capability.

Common experimental database

Data from previous projects worldwide and from ICE GENESIS was gathered into a common experimental database: https://www.icing-database.eu/.

Ensuring safety for all icing conditions: ICE GENESIS delivered a set of capabilities, covering all types of icing conditions and air vehicles. It permits weather hazards to be more precisely evaluated and properly mitigated by improving the understanding and modelling of icing conditions and providing engineering tools as a support for the design and certification.

Reducing certification costs: Though the maturity of the upgraded numerical tools is not yet sufficient for use as comprehensive certification means of compliance, significant improvements were achieved compared to the state of the art. They can be used for sensitivity studies and preliminary design assessments, enabling a reduction of design risks towards certification.

Reducing maintenance costs: The enhanced numerical models developed for liquid icing and snow will be used by the engine manufacturers for improving analysis capability of existing engine fleets, so as to reduce maintenance disruption.

Reducing power consumption and environmental footprint: The enhanced capabilities developed will contribute to the reduction of power consumption by supporting trade-offs on future ice protection systems for aircraft and engines. However more work is needed to increase the maturity of icing tools to enable integration of novel technologies and achieve the climate-neutral aviation objective.

Maintaining European competitiveness through:

• Maintained competitiveness for air vehicle and engine manufacturers
• Increased testing capabilities
• Strengthened leadership on icing tools
• Increased scientific excellence & strengthened international research collaboration with Canada and Japan

Progress made within ICE GENESIS will pave the way for future research activities in order to further mature numerical and test capabilities and provide the European aeronautical industry with necessary engineering tools for development and certification of future low emission products.