Ice Adhesion on Lubricant-Impregnated Textured Surfaces

TLDR

Ice accretion is a critical problem, and passive approaches to reduce ice‑adhesion are sought for aircraft, power lines, wind turbines, and oil platforms. The study investigates the ice‑adhesion properties of lubricant‑impregnated textured surfaces. The authors used cryogenic SEM imaging to reveal stress concentrators and crack initiation sites at the ice–lubricant interface that increase with texture density and reduce adhesion strength. Ice adhesion is higher on surfaces with thermodynamically stable lubricant films than on those with excess lubricant, decreases as texture density increases, and imaging shows stress concentrators that lower adhesion, indicating that lubricant‑impregnated surfaces must be optimized to surpass current ice‑phobic treatments.

Abstract

Ice accretion is an important problem and passive approaches for reducing ice-adhesion are of great interest in various systems such as aircrafts, power lines, wind turbines, and oil platforms. Here, we study the ice-adhesion properties of lubricant-impregnated textured surfaces. Force measurements show ice adhesion strength on textured surfaces impregnated with thermodynamically stable lubricant films to be higher than that on surfaces with excess lubricant. Systematic ice-adhesion measurements indicate that the ice-adhesion strength is dependent on texture and decreases with increasing texture density. Direct cryogenic SEM imaging of the fractured ice surface and the interface between ice and lubricant-impregnated textured surface reveal stress concentrators and crack initiation sites that can increase with texture density and result in lowering adhesion strength. Thus, lubricant-impregnated surfaces have to be optimized to outperform state-of-the-art icephobic treatments.