Tactics Development and Experiment of Zonal Heating Benefit for Airfoil Anti-Icing

Ice accretion on aircraft wings severely threatens flight safety and operational efficiency. Electric heating anti-icing/de-icing technology has great application value in this field due to advantages like low energy loss and precise zonal control. Nevertheless, the conventional uniform heating scheme suffers from drawbacks including excessive energy consumption and susceptibility to runback ice formation, rendering it incompatible with advanced aerodynamic configurations. Taking a NACA2412 airfoil with a 400mm chord length as the research specimen, this study proposes a full-wing zonal discontinuous electric heating strategy. Multi-condition tests were conducted in the FL-61 icing wind tunnel at Mach 0.35 and incoming static temperatures of −5 ℃, −15 ℃, and −25 ℃ to explore the effects of different heating ranges and power combinations on wing surface temperature and anti-icing performance. Results indicate that different incoming flow temperatures demand tailored heating strategies: at −5 ℃, reducing leading-edge power with mid-section supplementary heating solves runback ice and balances energy consumption; at −15 ℃, leading-edge power over 10kW/m2 plus mid-section heating prevents secondary icing from water droplet sliding; at −25 ℃, power spatial uniformity and critical margin ensure stable anti-icing for over 1 min. This study provides experimental support for optimizing airfoil electric heating anti-icing systems and their engineering application.