Alaa Almounauar
Research Mentor(s): Solomon Adera
Department or Program: MechE
Authors: Solomon Adera PhD
Session: Session 1: 12:00pm-12:50pm
Poster: 3
Abstract
Ice formation can lead to catastrophic failures (for example, road closures, flight delays, roof collapse, and gridline disruption). Despite its widespread occurrence, the relationship between surface wettability and ice adhesion strength, especially on state-of-the-art micro/nanostructured oil-impregnated surfaces, is not fully understood to date. Here, we systematically investigate the impact of oil viscosity and pillar density on ice adhesion strength. We fabricated well-defined silicon micropillars in a square pattern over a 5.22 mm diameter circular area. We covered the remaining part of the silicon surface using a 100 m thick SU8 photoresist to avoid condensation frosting of micro droplets from ambient air. In our experiments, we deposited a 40 l water droplet on a substrate that is securely attached to a temperature controlled thermoelectric cold stage. After allowing the droplet to freeze, we measure the force that is required to dislodge the ice crystal. We estimated the maximum shear stress by dividing the peak force with the base area of the droplet. Our results show that the ice adhesion measurement strategy employed in this work is repeatable. By elucidating the effect of viscosity on ice adhesion strength, the outcomes of this study improve our fundamental understanding of ice attachment mechanism on texture oil-impregnated surfaces
