Date of Award

7-11-2015

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Keywords

Coating, Engineering, Hydrophobic, Ice, Photovoltaic, Ultrasonic

Supervisor

Riahi, Reza

Supervisor

Edrisy, Afsaneh

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

A review of the literature shows there is much potential for the decrease and prevention of ice accumulation and adhesion on many materials including renewable energy devices with the use of well-designed hydrophobic coatings. It has also been shown that the addition of ultrasonic vibration can dramatically decrease or break the adhesion of ice altogether. A combination of hydrophobic coatings and ultrasonic vibration could result in a system capable of delaminating accumulated ice efficiently and remotely, which could replace outdated and expensive de-icing alternatives. Currently, however, there is not a standard method for measuring the ice adhesion of various materials of various surface conditions and an apparatus for this purpose cannot be purchased for research in the ice adhesion field. It is the objective of this project to design and fabricate a method of measuring the ice adhesion of various materials with differing surface conditions with the option of adding ultrasonic vibrational input. The objective of this investigation has been completed in that a method of measuring the ice adhesion of various materials with differing surface conditions with the option of adding ultrasonic vibrational input has been designed, fabricated and successfully tested on various materials and coating of differing surface conditions, the addition of ultrasonic vibrational input using the apparatus has also been successfully tested. Additionally, a custom-designed apparatus was built to investigate the surface wettability of samples of varying materials with differing surface conditions, called a goniometer, which has been used to measure the water contact angle and corresponding hysteresis of all samples.

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