Experimental investigation on ice-breaking performance of a novel plasma striker

Abstract Aircraft icing has long been a plague to aviation for its serious threat to flight safety. Recently, researches about a newly proposed deicing method based on Plasma Synthetic Jet Actuator (PSJA) have just started. To meet the requirements of in-flight deicing, structure of PSJA needs to be adjusted. This paper completed the detailed design and experimental validation of a novel plasma striker, which was a modified version of PSJA. Influences of mass of the moving part and rod shapes on the ice-breaking performances were also studied. Besides, a “conical-nosed rod configuration” was proposed. Its purpose was to ensure a good ice-breaking performance of the plasma striker on long ice, by generating a splitting failure. Results show that, though mass of the moving part was just several grams, ice-breaking performance was better when the mass was lighter. The rectangular rod could generate an elliptical circumferential crack, whose major axis was parallel to the direction of the long side of the rectangular rod. And the “conical-nosed rod” concept was verified to be able to generate a splitting crack which can spread completely to the far end of long ice, and the crack direction was parallel to edge line of the cone. In general, the plasma striker has the advantages of simple structure, low energy consumption, little harm to the flow field and the aircraft skin. Simulations will be carried out in future works to study in detail the working process of the plasma striker.