When aircraft fly in certain weather conditions, tiny freezing water droplets in the air can strike the airframe, accumulate as ice, and create safety risks if not addressed in design and certification. NASA software tools such as GlennICE help engineers analyze and mitigate these icing hazards on wings, engines, and control surfaces including rudders and elevators.
NASA developed GlennICE as a new software code to improve how engineers explore, understand, and prevent ice buildup on aircraft structures. Building on decades of NASA icing research, the software allows engineers to design aircraft so that ice buildup occurs less often or presents lower risk during flight.
Named for NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, GlennICE is part of a broader effort to provide the aviation industry with computational design tools that improve aircraft safety and support new vehicle concepts. For icing research and modeling, NASA computer codes have become industry standards, and GlennICE extends this lineage with detailed digital modeling of water and ice particles across a wide range of atmospheric conditions.
With updated capabilities and a streamlined user experience, GlennICE gives users a tool for analyzing complex and unconventional future aircraft designs. The software is aimed in particular at researchers working on configurations where icing behavior differs from traditional tube and wing transports.
"The legacy codes are well formulated to handle simulations of traditional tube-and-wing shaped aircraft," said Christopher Porter, lead for GlennICE's development. "But now, we have new vehicles with new designs that present icing research challenges. This requires a more advanced tool, and that's where GlennICE comes in."
Dozens of industry partners and other government agencies have begun using GlennICE, which is available through NASAs software catalog. The toolkit can be tailored to specific icing problems and is compatible with other software tools, making it more configurable and less time consuming for researchers to set up and use than legacy systems.
Though GlennICE is based on earlier NASA codes such as LEWICE 3D, NASA describes it as a distinct new toolkit. Users can adapt it to unique icing scenarios, and its configuration options are intended to shorten preparation time for simulations.
This streamlined process and more advanced modeling capability allow GlennICE to address 21st century aircraft concepts including supersonic planes, advanced air mobility drones and other vehicles, unconventionally shaped wings, open rotor turbofan designs, and new configurations for conventional aircraft such as radar domes. The software supports both emerging aircraft classes and modified versions of existing platforms where icing remains a key design and certification concern.
Porter likens the simulation to an aircraft flying through a cloud, where some water and ice droplets strike the airframe while others do not. GlennICE models the droplet trajectories, determines which ones hit the aircraft, and calculates where they land on the structure.
When droplets hit the aircraft, they can attach, freeze, and gather additional droplets, causing ice to grow over time. GlennICE simulates where this accumulation will occur and what shape the ice will take as conditions persist.
"We're not just dealing with the airplane, but the physics of the air and water as well," Porter said. The software incorporates aerodynamics and thermodynamics to represent how droplets move, freeze, and interact with aircraft surfaces.
Because GlennICE is designed for droplet simulations, researchers are also interested in using it to examine other environmental conditions such as sand and volcanic ash. When ingested by aircraft engines, these particles can create separate risks that aeronautical engineers work to prevent.
Icing research is fundamental to aviation safety, and NASA provides specialized test facilities and computational tools for the field. The agencys wind tunnels include icing research capabilities that are not commonly available elsewhere in aeronautics.
When paired with wind tunnel testing, GlennICE offers a broader set of capabilities to researchers. Wind tunnels can verify and validate data using physical models and controlled conditions, while digital tools like GlennICE extend studies to environments that are difficult or impractical to reproduce experimentally.
"Some environments we need to test in are impractical with wind tunnels because of the tunnel size required and complex physics involved," Porter said. "But with GlennICE, we can do these tests digitally. For example, we can model all the icing conditions noted in new regulations."
GlennICE development falls under NASAs Transformative Aeronautics Concepts and Advanced Air Vehicles programs, which support computational tool development for aerospace design. These efforts include digital environments that enhance analysis of aircraft performance, safety, and integration of new technologies.
NASA also documents the history of its icing research, including decades of work in the Icing Research Tunnel. That heritage underpins current projects such as GlennICE, which quantify icing effects on modern and emerging aircraft systems.
Related Links
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com
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