A low interfacial-toughness self-segregating thermoset for large-scale ice-shedding coating application

The accretion of ice is detrimental in numerous domains, and thus, developing ice-release coatings is of great significance. The recent introduction of stress-localized surfaces has opened new prospects in the development of ice-shedding coatings that could lead to more durable materials. However, the different ice-shedding solutions that have been developed so far lack durability or are too complex to be implemented successfully on an industrial scale. Therefore, we here investigate the potential of one-pot self-segregating siloxane-polyurethane (Si-PU) thermosets as durable stress localized surfaces for easy ice-shedding of large-scale icing. In this context, we explore the propensity of self-segregating Si-PU coatings to display surface modulus heterogeneities and the ability of such heterogeneities to initiate and propagate a crack at the ice/coating interface.