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
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
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could result in a system capable of delaminating accumulated ice efficiently and remotely, which could replace outdated and expensive de-icing alternatives.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.
Recommended Citation
Fillion, Ryan Matthew, "De-icing in Photovoltaic Devices by Ultrasonic Waves and Surface Engineering" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5332.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5332