COUPLED ELECTRICAL AND THERMAL TRANSFERS IN A GLASS-EPOXY CARBON COMPOSITE - APPLICATION TO THE DESIGN OF A HELICOPTER BLADE DEICER

Our work relates to the numerical modeling of steady state transfer of heat in an anistropic composite material made up of many cross directional layers of epoxy carbon fibers and epoxy glass fibers with an electric current passing through the material. To understand this phenomenon we had to study coupled transfers of heat and electricity. We have developed a mathematical model of a device shaped appropriately to be a de-icer on a helicopter's rotor blade. This model was used to determine the distribution of the dissipated electric power, from which the temperature distribution is computed. We have demonstrated that the temperature distribution is closely linked to the distribution of the dissipated electric power. We have also demonstrated that the effect of the shape necessarily leads to an uneven heating of the material. The heterogeneity of the temperature dissipations might in certain cases be very pronounced and lead to heat peaks. It is possible to improve this uneven distribution appreciably by varying the material's composition.