Determination of water collection on two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic surfaces in external two-phase flow in atmospheric conditions

Simulations of two-phase flow cases consisting of air and water dispersed in atmosphere were conducted using ANSYS FLUENT solver. The computational model was built with the aim of determination of zones of water droplets impinging on the investigated surface, which is a first step towards simulations of ice accretion in flow conditions where super cooled water is present as dispersed phase. It follows Eulerian approach, currently most effective approach for determination of distribution of water collection on two- and three-dimensional surfaces. Dispersed water is treated as continuous phase and its transport equations are being solved along with air flow equations in the whole computational domain. There are two specific factors of this two-phase flow problem. One of them is ratio of air and water density, which is a cause of existence of two time scales in obtaining a numerical solution of this problem: one for convergence of air flow solution and another for solution of flow of dispersed water in the computational domain. This required development of a specific strategy in obtaining a numerical solution in some circumstances important in aerodynamics, especially at high angle of attack with flow recirculation zones on the wing. The other factor is relatively low concentration of water droplets in conditions important for atmospheric icing. The consequence of this is possibility of uncoupling of solution for both phases and narrowing the solution of the phase of dispersed water to a small region of non-uniformity of velocities of the dispersed phase. Results for two objects: an airfoil and helicopter tail rotor blade, exploiting the developed computational strategy will be presented.