Three-Dimensional Numerical Simulation of Aircraft Wing Ice Accretion Using an Eulerian Droplet Model with Runback Water Distribution

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Bangtuo Yu 1 , 2
Lifen Zhang 1
Chengxin Zhou 1
Yaguo Lyu 1
Zhengang Liu 1
1 Department of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 1 Dongxiang Road, Xi'an, 710129, China
2 Xi’an Precision Machinery Research Institute Kunming Branch, Kunming, 650000, China
10.22055/jacm.2026.49171.5779
Abstract
Accurate simulation of three-dimensional ice accretion on aircraft wings remains challenging because droplet impingement, runback water transport, and ice-shape reconstruction are strongly coupled over complex surfaces. To address this issue, a three-dimensional numerical icing framework is developed on the Fluent platform. The local water collection coefficient is calculated using an Eulerian droplet model solved through the user-defined scalar (UDS) approach, in which impingement and non-impingement regions are distinguished according to the droplet velocity and wall-normal vector. A diffusion term is introduced to improve numerical robustness. Based on the Messinger thermodynamic icing model, a runback water treatment for unstructured surface grids is established, together with an area-weighted ice-shape reconstruction and mesh-deformation method for multi-step three-dimensional icing simulation. The method is validated using the NACA0012 straight wing and the MS-317 swept wing under representative icing conditions. For droplet impingement, the predicted local water collection coefficient agrees well with the reference data, with a relative error of less than 1.6% near the leading edge for the NACA0012 case. For the NACA0012 airfoil, the maximum ice-thickness error is 1.32% under rime ice conditions, while the deviation in icing limit is about 2.3% under glaze ice conditions. For the MS-317 swept wing, the maximum ice-thickness error is about 8.4% under rime ice conditions and 1.87% under glaze ice conditions at 1164 s, although the icing-limit deviation remains about 33%. Overall, the proposed framework shows good predictive capability, whereas icing-limit prediction under long-duration glaze ice conditions still requires improvement.
Keywords
Runback water
Eulerian two-phase flow
3-D icing simulation
Ice-shape reconstruction
Multi-step simulation
Subjects

Publisher’s Note Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Journal of Applied and Computational Mechanics

Articles in Press, Corrected Proof
Available Online from 24 April 2026