Insights into the interface during ice adhesion measurements

Abstract

When evaluating published results from ice adhesion measurements to characterise the applicability of surface coatings, there is usually a large variation of the published properties and a high scattering of these values. Moreover ice adhesion is known as a highly susceptible parameter regarding the measurement temperature which additionally leads to deviations. This paper is a contribution to the evaluation of ice adhesion results and provides a correlation of the measurements with the surface characteristics. In the paper a novel instrumentalised method of a quasistatic ice adhesion test is proposed in order to measure additional information about force and displacement behaviour of adhered ice. The evaluation of several measurements reveals insights into nanoscopic processes in the interface during the adhesion process. Different modes of the adhesion process of ice, like clean breaks, sliding with almost no force, sliding with high forces, multiple breaks or multiple sticking, not only we found to correlate to the material, but also to methodological test parameters. The overlapping influence of surface characteristics and test parameters is highlighted.