Testing Propeller Icing in a Climate Wind Tunnel

This article summarizes the research performed at the Sirris Large Climatic Test Facility (Antwerp, Belgium), which looked at drone performance in icing conditions.

The test setup included the following:

1. The Sirris Large Climatic Test Facility.
2. A Tyto Robotics Series 1585 thrust stand.
3. The brushless DC motor, a Taft Hobby 3553 1550kv was powered with a 12V laboratory power supply, through a Turnigy 60A SimonK ESC. The propeller was a 3-blade, 9 inch HQProp MacroQuad with a pitch of 5 inches.
4. An image capture system was engineered to visualize the formation of ice on the propeller. It featured two short-duration strobe lights that generate flashes as short as 1𝜇s.
5. Imaging is performed with a Canon 5D Mk2, a full frame digital SLR camera.

Click “Read Full Story” to read the results.