9 Sep 2021

Shear and Tensile Delamination of Ice from Surfaces: The Ice Adhesion Peel Test (IAPT)

ABSTRACT: For decades, researchers have sought to understand the adhesion of ice to surfaces so that low-cost ice mitigation strategies can be developed. Presently, the field of ice adhesion is still without formal standards for performing ice adhesion tests. The U.S. Army Corps Engineers’ Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (ERDC-CRREL) has a longstanding history as an independent third party for ice adhesion testing services. Most notably, CRREL’s Zero-Degree Cone Test (ZDCT) has been an industry favorite for more than 30 years. Despite its wide acceptance, the ZDCT contains some shortcomings, namely that freshwater ice is formed on the surface of interest within the confines of an annular gap. To address this limitation, CRREL developed and uses the Ice Adhesion Peel Test (IAPT) for testing ice adhesion. This test employs an open planar substrate from which the ice can be removed under either tensile or shear loading, thereby allowing ice to be grown directly on the target substrate without the use of molds. The IAPT configuration is therefore amenable to different ice types and geometries and will provide utility to research studies that aim to develop surface treatments to mitigate ice in a wide range of environments. This report describes the IAPT and its use for characterizing the ice adhesion properties of materials.