Numerical simulation of the impact and freezing stage of supercooled droplets on the ship superstructure surface in the Arctic route

• Published in: Frontiers in Energy Research
• Main Authors: Xu Bai, Sujie Yang, Ping Wei, Li Zhou
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
• Subjects: ship’s icing; supercooled water droplets; freezing; impact; undercooling; contact angle; General Works; A; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2022.950649; https://doaj.org/article/38e9c200241a4ec48985c5ee0b515950

Icing not only affects the stability and safety of Arctic navigation ships but also damages the facilities on board and endangers the safety of personnel. The icing result on the ship’s surface is closely related to the icing process of water droplets on the surface. In the icing process of supercooled water droplets colliding with the ship surface, the impact and icing are coupled with each other. This process is extremely sensitive. The final ice type and physical parameters will change due to the external disturbance. Therefore, in order to obtain accurate ship icing results, the micro impact icing process of water droplets on the surface needs to be considered. From the microscopic point of view, using the numerical simulation method of solidification/melting model in Fluent, this article analyzes the effects of undercooling, contact angle, and droplet impact on the microscopic solidification process of supercooled droplets, and the results show that 1) droplet impact affects the droplet volume; 2) as the impact velocity increases, the freezing time decreases; 3) in the case of the same impact velocity, the freezing time and cooling time vary very closely even if the degree of undercooling and contact angle are different.