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Destination Tomorrow - DT2 - Icing Research Tunnel

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Subido el 28 de mayo de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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NASA Destination Tomorrow Segment exploring the issue of ice formation on aircrafts. The segment explains how the icing research tunnel is helping engineers combat icing on aircraft.

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Hello everyone, I'm Steele McGonigal. 00:00:00
And I'm Kara O'Brien, and welcome to Destination Tomorrow. 00:00:05
This program will uncover how past, present, and future research is creating today's knowledge 00:00:09
to answer the questions and solve the challenges of tomorrow. 00:00:13
We begin with an issue that affects all aircraft that fly in our atmosphere. 00:00:16
The formation of ice on airplanes is not only an issue on the runway during cold weather, 00:00:21
but can form on airplanes in flight. 00:00:25
This problem can be a dangerous situation for any piloted aircraft. 00:00:28
Fortunately, NASA has been conducting research on icing with a unique wind tunnel facility 00:00:31
that creates icing conditions on aircraft. 00:00:36
Jennifer Pulley takes Destination Tomorrow behind the scenes to see how this icing research 00:00:40
tunnel is helping engineers combat icing conditions on aircraft. 00:00:44
Thanks for the ice. 00:00:48
You know, there's nothing like a beverage chilled with ice during a long flight. 00:00:57
Inside an airplane, ice is something passengers desire. 00:01:04
However, outside an airplane, ice can be dangerous, especially if it forms on the wings or engines. 00:01:07
I had the opportunity to speak with Judy Foss-Vanzanti at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, 00:01:13
Ohio. 00:01:18
She's researching the effects of icing on aircraft at a unique facility called the Icing 00:01:19
Research Tunnel. 00:01:25
Researchers at this facility study the formation of ice on the exterior of aircraft. 00:01:26
So while flying, the only ice you'll need to worry about is the ice inside your cup. 00:01:31
Well, I'm standing right here in the Icing Research Tunnel. 00:01:35
Right here, we create on Earth what it's like for an airplane to fly through an icing cloud 00:01:39
up there. 00:01:43
To do that, we've got to make it windy, cold, and wet. 00:01:44
Now, right now, I'm standing in front of the fan. 00:01:47
We have the fan to create the wind, and in the test section, which is a much smaller 00:01:50
cross-sectional area, we can get winds up to 400 miles per hour. 00:01:54
So that's about as fast as a plane might fly through in an icing environment. 00:01:58
We create the cold with our heat exchanger, 1,700 ton, it can cool 500 homes. 00:02:02
That's how big it is. 00:02:08
We can get from zero Celsius down to about minus 20, which is where the icing might occur 00:02:09
in nature. 00:02:15
And we have spray bars. 00:02:16
The spray bars is what makes the icing tunnel. 00:02:19
We create the rain. 00:02:21
We create a mist that the airplane would fly through. 00:02:22
Now, the thing about the spray bars is the researchers need to control both how much 00:02:26
water is in the cloud, the liquid water content, we call it, and how big the drop size is. 00:02:30
And we have spray bars specially designed to create those conditions. 00:02:37
So in our test section, we create what it's like for an airplane to fly through an icing 00:02:40
cloud. 00:02:44
So why did NASA build an icing research tunnel? 00:02:45
As it turns out, during World War II, the Allies lost more aircraft to icing than enemy 00:02:48
fires. 00:02:55
They were trying to fly supplies over the Himalayas. 00:02:56
So the Air Corps turned to NACA, that's NASA's predecessor, and asked them to build an icing 00:02:58
research tunnel so we could understand what was going on and how to fix the problem. 00:03:03
So what do you test in the icing research tunnel, or the IRT? 00:03:07
What we test in the IRT is what makes sense to test. 00:03:11
Now, if you think about it, if you're in an airplane flying through an icing cloud, what 00:03:14
surfaces are most critical to keep ice free? 00:03:18
Well, it's the wings, which provide the lift, get you off the ground, and it's the engine 00:03:21
inlet, which provides the forward thrust. 00:03:25
So we typically can test just those components, just the wing or the engine inlet. 00:03:28
So what happens when ice forms on an airplane's wing? 00:03:33
Well, ice can disrupt the airflow over a wing and will eventually cause the airflow to separate. 00:03:37
This separation of airflow creates more drag and less lift. 00:03:43
If ice continues to form, the wing will no longer produce the appropriate amount of lift 00:03:49
needed to keep the airplane in flight. 00:03:54
In some cases, ice creates airflow separation over movable parts, like an aileron. 00:03:57
This could create handling or control problems, and the plane could suddenly roll. 00:04:03
As the wing is flying through the air, the ice only accumulates around the leading edge. 00:04:09
So that's why ice protection systems only wrap around the first part, the front part 00:04:13
of the wing. 00:04:18
The biggest factor in how the ice grows is temperature. 00:04:20
So if it's really cold, the water droplet comes in, hits the front part of the wing, 00:04:24
and freezes on impact, and you get this nice, pointy, rhyme shape. 00:04:28
The more dangerous ice comes during warmer conditions, those closer to freezing, where 00:04:33
the water comes in, hits the leading edge, and actually runs back a little bit. 00:04:37
If that happens, the next droplet might come and see that droplet that is frozen and start 00:04:42
to grow. 00:04:46
So you might get these ram's horns that grow upstream. 00:04:47
Now that significantly disrupts your airflow, and that is not, that's way off design, and 00:04:50
that's very bad. 00:04:55
Judy, tell me a little bit more about the icing protection system. 00:04:56
Do all planes have it? 00:04:59
There's what we call an anti-ice system, where you don't allow the ice to grow at all. 00:05:01
If you've got a very hot leading edge, you see that in jets, and there's a de-icing system 00:05:05
which has pneumatic boots that the boots will wrap around that leading edge, they'll inflate 00:05:10
and pop the ice off, so you'll let the ice grow, and then you've got to get it off. 00:05:15
The pneumatic boots are typically what you see with turboprop aircraft. 00:05:19
Does icing affect planes in, say, a warm climate? 00:05:23
Icing occurs everywhere. 00:05:27
You've got to be aware of it. 00:05:29
I've got a pilot friend who told me the worst icing he encountered was flying from Florida 00:05:31
to the Caribbean in July at 16,000 feet, the worst icing he ever saw. 00:05:36
But icing really can occur anywhere and anytime. 00:05:41
One of the things we do here at NASA is to have better designs, so maybe a system that 00:05:44
would automatically turn on the ice protection system if a sensor goes out. 00:05:49
The short-term solution is to train the pilots and educate them about how to detect icing, 00:05:54
how to be aware of it, train them how to get out of the icing environment if and when they need to. 00:06:00
Ideally, icing is a non-issue in the future. 00:06:05
We're working to get there. 00:06:08
In 1987, the Icing Research Tunnel was designated an International Historical Mechanical Engineering 00:06:10
Landmark for its leading role in making aviation safer for everyone. 00:06:16
Coming up, we'll see how a new dental probe designed by NASA will make going 00:06:20
to the dentist a little easier. 00:06:23
But first, did you know that during World War II, the Allies lost nearly 1,000 planes 00:06:26
over the Himalayan Mountains due to icing? 00:06:30
Flight conditions here were so treacherous that pilots called this dangerous route the 00:06:33
Hump or the Aluminum Trail. 00:06:37
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Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
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Autor/es:
NASA LaRC Office of Education
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
551
Fecha:
28 de mayo de 2007 - 17:04
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
NASAs center for distance learning
Duración:
06′ 43″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
480x360 píxeles
Tamaño:
39.10 MBytes

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