Within the framework of the Joint Technology Initiative “Clean Sky”, Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS, Toulouse (France), and Sonaca SA, Gosselies (Belgium), have recently achieved a major milestone in the development of a wing ice protection system that uses electric instead of pneumatic energy.

The companies had the thermal performances of the electric ice protection system validated in both an anti-icing and a de-icing mode under defined icing conditions. The tests were carried out at the NASA Icing Re-search Tunnel (IRT), in Cleveland, Ohio (USA). The functionality of the control principle of the system was also tested and validated.

The next validation step will be a flight test with an electrical wing ice protection system demonstrator on an Airbus A320 test platform in 2015. This test is meant to evaluate the robustness of both the control and the power consumption of the system in the different flight phases.

Electric wing ice protection: a contribution to greener air transport

In certain flight phases, e.g. during taxiing or take-off, classic pneumatic bleed ice protection systems drain more energy for anti-icing than needed. As a result, they significantly impact on the fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions of the aircraft.

The electric wing ice protection system, in contrast, adapts its power demand to the flight phases, thus substantially reducing the total power consumption in flight. Also, it features both an anti-icing and a de-icing mode, which gives air framer customers the opportunity to specify their system operation requirements even more precisely. Switching between the modes can reduce energy consumption even further.

With the next-generation wing ice protection system both companies contribute to making air transport greener, and strengthen their position in their respective field of competence – Liebherr-Aerospace in supplying electric air management systems for future electric aircraft, and Sonaca in manufacturing advanced integrated wing leading edges.