An icephobic coating for aircraft anti-icing system

Aircraft icing is a fairly common phenomenon, which may occur during take-off, landing and flight of the aircraft. In order to ensure flight safety, it is necessary to carry out research on aircraft anti-icing technology. Here, we demonstrate a facile method to prepare icephobic coatings that can be applied to aircraft anti-icing systems by epoxy-silicone composite resin and polytetrafluoroethylene particles. Studies have shown that this icephobic coating not only has good superhydrophobicity, abrasion resistance and aging resistance, but also has excellent anti-icing function. Supercooled droplet impact and delayed icing test results show that the icephobic surface can completely repel supercooled (- 2 degrees C) water droplets at - 10 degrees C (rebound within - 12 ms), while delaying the freezing process for - 718 s. After 10 times of mechanical deicing, the coating still maintained a low ice adhesion strength (- 112.4 kPa) and consistent wettability. In addition, the icing state of the developed coating was evaluated by used the icing wind tunnel to simulate the icing environment of the aircraft during natural flight, and the results showed that it can significantly reduce the thickness of ice accumulation. The above properties of this icephobic surface provide a new idea for aircraft anti-icing technology. [GRAPHICS] .