A new measuring system for the determination of the ice adhesion strength on smooth surfaces.

To gain knowledge about cause-effect relationships for the adhesion of ice on surfaces with different chemical groups we wanted to study the effect of thin polymer layers on the ice adhesion strength. To minimize the effect of roughness smooth substrates were chosen, which have generally relatively low ice adhesion strengths. To be able to obtain highly reproducible values for the region of low ice adhesion and to measure small differences of ice adhesion at surfaces with different chemical composition a new measuring system for the determination of the ice adhesion strength which bases on a modified spin-coater was developed. We show its technical potential on the basis of first results on pure silicon wafers and selected hydrophilic polymer layers. Furthermore we investigated the effect of the water quality on the ice adhesion strength. The obtained data are discussed in the context of physico-chemical properties of the layers and of the chemical characteristics of the used polymers.