Critical considerations in the mitigation of insect residue contamination on aircraft surfaces – A review

Kok, Mariana; Smith, Joseph G.; Wohl, Christopher J.; Siochi, Emilie J.; Young, Trevor

doi:10.1016/j.paerosci.2015.02.001

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(189 reference statements)

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“…There has been considerable research into the effects of icing on the aerodynamics of the wing (e.g., [6]) and ways to mitigate icing (e.g., using coatings [7]). In comparison, less attention has been paid to contamination due to insect residue, even though minute insect residue has the potential to disrupt the laminar flow of an aircraft (see bottom-row image in Figure 1) and compromise its overall efficiency due to the promotion of turbulent flow [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To maintain laminar flow on an LFC aircraft, airfoils must either be cleaned or, other means, the contamination height must be kept below 100-400 µm, depending o application [8,13,[15][16][17][18]. Different methods for mitigating insect residue have been [14] with permission; and bottom image sourced from [8] with permission from Elsevier).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To maintain laminar flow on an LFC aircraft, airfoils must either be cleaned o other means, the contamination height must be kept below 100-400 µm, dependin application [8,13,[15][16][17][18]. Different methods for mitigating insect residue have be The amount of insect residue remaining on the surface or airfoil is a function of the insect type and characteristics of the impact (e.g., the speed and angle of impact), and other variables, such as the presence of airflow and surface/airfoil coating.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Study of Insect Impact on an Aerodynamic Body Using a Rotary Wing Simulator

Ghasemzadeh,

Amirfazli

2023

Fluids

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Laminar flow aircraft may potentially save fuel and reduce the emission of pollutants and greenhouse gases. However, laminar flow aircraft face challenges caused by contaminations on the wings, such as insect impact residue. To study insect residue on an aircraft airfoil, a new setup was developed that used rotary wings and shot an insect toward the leading edge. This setup kept insects intact before impact while airflow was maintained throughout the experiment. Additionally, the setup enabled the long-term observation of the impact residue while the test speed was adjusted. Two experiments were carried out to investigate inconsistencies from past studies about insect rupture velocity and the effect of airflow on residue. Drosophila Hydei was the insect used, and aluminum was used as the baseline substrate, which was also coated with polyurethane, acrylic, and two superhydrophobic coatings. Instead of a threshold velocity for the minimum rupture velocity of the insect, a range from initial insect rupture to the velocity at which insects ruptured in all instances was determined (i.e., 17–30 m/s). Furthermore, the presence of a coating (polyurethane) on the airfoil did not affect the minimum rupture velocity. It was observed that airflow, which has been previously mentioned as a mitigation method, did not change the residue amount after coagulation for all coatings.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Study of Insect Impact on an Aerodynamic Body Using a Rotary Wing Simulator

Ghasemzadeh,

Amirfazli

2023

Fluids

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“…[3][4][5] The issue of airfoil surface roughness has been explored by a number of researchers. For example, Corten et al 6 and Kok et al [7][8][9][10][11] studied surface roughness due to deposition of glutinous crushed insects; sticky dust particles have been observed in Saharan environments 12,13 and ice accretion have been reported in the cold northern hemisphere. [14][15][16] Chi et al, 17 Villalpando et al 18 and McClain et al 19 studied the ice formation on blades of wind turbine; Soltani et al 20 and Zhang et al 21 investigated contamination induced surface roughness of wind turbine blades; Fiore and Selig [22][23][24] studied the blade damage incurred by rain, hail, sand, and insects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Site-specific considerations for aerodynamic design upgrade of a wind turbine operating in a saharan environment

El-Din

Diab

2022

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A:

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Sand erosion and dust deposition may induce surface irregularities of the blades of a wind turbine deployed in the Sahara, causing performance deterioration. In the current work a multi-objective optimization algorithm is developed to upgrade the aerodynamic blade profile of wind turbines operating in a Saharan environment. As a case study, the rotor of the Nordtank 300 kW horizontal axis wind turbine operating in Hurghada, Egypt is customized for lower sensitivity to surface roughness. The goal is to achieve a high lift-to-drag ratio while simultaneously maintain high resistance to dust deposition and sand erosion. The optimization algorithm is developed in MATLAB using C-language and coupled via ANSYS-ICEM to ANSYS-FLUENT computational fluid dynamics software for a particle-laden flow simulation until the optimization objectives are iteratively met. The optimization process yields a blade with lower sensitivity to surface roughness issues not only offsetting the 10.58% loss in Annual Energy Production (AEP) using the original profile, but actually boosting the AEP by 10.87% for the optimized blade. It is believed that this research may draw attention to the need for site-specific blade design to avoid environmental surface degradation as a result of dust deposition and sand erosion that may be unavoidable in the Saharan environment of countries in the MENA region.

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“…Although this is mostly an annoyance for drivers, avoiding insect residue accumulation due to collisions with moving surfaces has many important technological implications2. In aerodynamic architectures such as wings or turbine blades, performance levels are closely related to the airflow boundary layer attached to the airfoil section where turbulent flow has a higher drag than laminar flow3.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Alternating Polymer Nanocomposite (TAPNC) Coating Designed to Prevent Aerodynamic Insect Fouling

Bayer¹,

Krishnan²,

Robison³

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Insect residue adhesion to moving surfaces such as turbine blades and aircraft not only causes surface contamination problems but also increases drag on these surfaces. Insect fouling during takeoff, climb and landing can result in increased drag and fuel consumption for aircraft with laminar-flow surfaces. Hence, certain topographical and chemical features of non-wettable surfaces need to be designed properly for preventing insect residue accumulation on surfaces. In this work, we developed a superhydrophobic coating that is able to maintain negligible levels of insect residue after 100 high speed (50 m/s) insect impact events produced in a wind tunnel. The coating comprises alternating layers of a hydrophobic, perfluorinated acrylic copolymer and hydrophobic surface functional silicon dioxide nanoparticles that are infused into one another by successive thermal treatments. The design of this coating was achieved as a result of various experiments conducted in the wind tunnel by using a series of superhydrophobic surfaces made by the combination of the same polymer and nanoparticles in the form of nanocomposites with varying surface texture and self-cleaning hydrophobicity properties. Moreover, the coating demonstrated acceptable levels of wear abrasion and substrate adhesion resistance against pencil hardness, dry/wet scribed tape peel adhesion and 17.5 kPa Taber linear abraser tests.

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Critical considerations in the mitigation of insect residue contamination on aircraft surfaces – A review

Cited by 22 publications

References 96 publications

Study of Insect Impact on an Aerodynamic Body Using a Rotary Wing Simulator

Study of Insect Impact on an Aerodynamic Body Using a Rotary Wing Simulator

Site-specific considerations for aerodynamic design upgrade of a wind turbine operating in a saharan environment

Thermal Alternating Polymer Nanocomposite (TAPNC) Coating Designed to Prevent Aerodynamic Insect Fouling

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