Three-dimensional numerical simulation of ice accretion at the engine inlet

Tocalculate ice shapes at engine inlet, a fully three-dimensional ice accretion model based on the classical Messinger thermodynamic model is established, which takes the effect of runback water into consideration. Considering the air frictional force as the main factor to drive the surface runback water streaming, the shear stress on the inlet surface is used to determine the film flow direction and the mass flux distribution of the runback water. To solve the ice accretion model of runback water on the three-dimensional surface, an effective approach of circularly checking the condition of control volume is developed, which can quickly perform the icing calculation of all grids on the surface. The ice accretion calculation of a certain three-dimensional engine inlet is carried out and the ice shapes are obtained using the code written in this paper. Comparisons between computational results and FENSAP-ICE results show that the ice profiles of both codes are in good agreement except for slight differences at the ice horn, which confirms the validity and rationality of the three-dimensional ice accretion model and the computational approach at engine inlet.