Marine Icing Sensor with Phase Discrimination.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Sensor Technology
• Materials Science

Background:

• Marine icing poses significant risks to infrastructure and operations.
• Accurate measurement of ice and water accretion in two-phase conditions is challenging.
• Existing methods lack the precision for differentiating ice and water layers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel sensor system for measuring marine icing phenomena.
• To quantify ice and water accretion layer dimensions in a two-phase environment.
• To provide a practical solution for environmental monitoring of marine icing.

Main Methods:

• Development of a three-element electrostatic array sensor.
• Implementation of a signal processing technique utilizing a decision tree model.
• Experimental verification of sensor performance and model accuracy.

Main Results:

• The electrostatic array successfully derived linearly decoupled signals.
• Key parameters, ice and water accretion layer dimensions, were determined.
• A correlation between signal characteristics and ice layer thickness was observed, despite water layer influence.
• The decision tree model effectively related signal characteristics to accretion thicknesses.

Conclusions:

• The developed sensor array and decision tree model offer a simple, practical solution for measuring two-phase marine icing.
• This approach enhances environmental monitoring capabilities for icing conditions.
• The findings contribute to improved understanding and management of marine icing hazards.