Different De-Icing Systems for Aircraft - Research Paper Example

This paper looks at the various systems used for de-icing in airplanes. The protection of engines and the aircrafts can take fundamental forms. One of them is the removal of ice once it has been formed, or probes be used to prevent it from forming. De-icing is the removal of ice, snow, or hoarfrost on the surface of the airplanes. However, deicing is correlated with anti-icing, which is defined as the use chemicals in the surfaces of the aircraft. The chemicals do not only de-ice but also stay put on a surface and prevent buildup of ice for a period, or hinder adhesion of ice to make mechanical removal easier.

Therefore anti-icing is also a form of de-icing (Skybrary, 2012). Removing ice on the surface of the aero planes takes various forms. It can be done using chemical methods such as scrapping and pushing. In order to achieve this, heat must be applied on the surface of the plane, by using liquid or dry chemicals that are formed to decrease the freezing point of water. Such chemicals include alcohols, brines, salts, and glycols. Moreover, they can combine many of these chemicals in order to enhance their effectiveness.

De-icing can also be done through the use of a protective layers such as the use of viscous liquid known as the anti-icing fluid on the surface of the aero plane to absorb the contaminate. . In addition, it dilutes the anti-icing fluids used thus changing into a contaminant itself (Lankford, 1999). Salt has also been another method that is used to de-ice. It has traditionally been used to de-ice roads with the addition of sand and gravel. This has been effective due to the availability of the chemical sodium chloride also known as rock salt.

This method is effective and inexpensive to use. Moreover, it is readily available. However, this method cannot be used for temperatures below -18 degrees centigrade, which mostly is easily achieved by highflying aeroplanes. Moreover, this method causes corrosion on the surface of the aeroplane, therefore rusting the steel, which is one of the materials used to make the surface of the aeroplanes (Roskam, 2000). In addition, de-icing on the aeroplanes uses another method that uses different categories of salts such as calcium chloride and magnesium chloride.

These salts are important since they condense and depress the freezing point of water to a lower temperature. However, this salt also causes exothermic reaction. In the recent years, more advanced salts have been developed which do not cause environmental issues that was previously affected by the salts. They also have a longer residue effect when used together with the traditional salts such as salt brines and solids (Roskam, 2000). In addition, de-icing has taken various forms with the development of technology.

More recently, the flight industry has turned into using the infrared de-icing system. This method is advantageous in that it is subsequently faster than the traditional salt systems and conservative heat transfer modes used by