A high throughput tensile ice adhesion measurement system
Description
The accretion of ice to engineering and everyday surfaces can damage the iced structure or threaten safety. Designing materials with low adhesion to ice first requires the ability to accurately measure the strength of the adhesion between the surface and ice. The majority of studies in this field have focused on manipulating and measuring the adhesion strength of different materials under an imposed shear stress. From these studies, elastomers have emerged as a promising class of low ice adhesion materials due to interfacial cavitation, a tension-driven surfaces instability. However, no commercially available or readily buildable instrumentation exists to measure ice adhesion in tension. We design a high throughput, low cost device that can measure the tensile ice adhesion strength of different surfaces. The design, construction, and operation of the tensile ice adhesion measurement system are delineated. The performance of the setup is validated experimentally by varying the temperature, tensile pull-off speed, thickness of the substrate, and ice/substrate interfacial area for several metals and plastics. Ice adhesion measurements follow known laws of fracture mechanics, exemplifying the accuracy and precision of the instrument.