Robust moving meshes for the prediction of aerodynamic degradation during in-flight icing

The irregular shapes that glaze ice may grow into while accreting over the surface of an aircraft represent a major difficulty in the numerical simulation of long periods of in-flight icing. In the framework of Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulations, a mesh movement scheme is presented, in which frame and elasticity analogies are loosely coupled. The resulting deformed mesh preserves the quality of elements, especially in the near-wall region, where accurate prediction of heat flux and shear stresses are required. The proposed scheme handles mesh movement in a computationally efficient manner by localizing the mesh deformation. Numerical results of ice shapes and the corresponding aerodynamic coefficients are compared with the experimental results.