Ice Accretion on Cables of Various Cross-sections

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Abstract
Poots & Rodgers (1976) gave analytical and numerical results on the icing of a cable having circular cross-section. The wind carrying freezing fog or supercooled cloud droplets impinges on the cable and a spike of rime ice grows outward into the wind. A linear Stokes law of resistance was assumed in calculating the drag force on individual droplets. Consequently the theoretical predictions on ice accretion are shown to be restricted to small cable radii and high wind speeds (i.e. for large Stokes number). The purpose of this paper is to give detailed numerical solutions for ice accretion on cables of various cross-sections. Empirical drag formulae for droplets in motion, with local Reynolds numbers up to 102, are now employed in the numerical solution of droplet trajectories and impaction velocities on the ice accretion surface. Cables having circular, elliptical, square, and equilateral triangular cross-section are investigated; also included are results for a cylinder of elliptic cross-section the major axis of which is aligned at an angle to the upstream wind direction. For fixed wind speed and cable size and cross-section the mass of ice accreted is given as a function of the time. These results are relevant to the evolution of ice accretion on structures.

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