Experimental Study and Application of Artificial Snow Nuclei Diameter for Airworthiness Verification

This study aimed to investigate the impact of various factors, such as environmental temperature, wind speed, snow formation distance, and air-to-water ratio, on ice crystal growth. The experiment was conducted in an icing wind tunnel to provide prescribed snow conditions for snow uplift and snowfall tests, which are essential for the airworthiness testing of domestically-produced large aircraft. The snow samples were collected and observed under different conditions, and image recognition algorithms were utilized for data analysis. The results showed that a higher degree of environmental supercooling can facilitate rapid ice crystal growth but can lead to a decrease in the average crystal diameter. Supercooling below 5 ℃ promoted uniform and stable ice crystal growth. Additionally, reducing wind speed and increasing snow formation distance can lead to an increase in ice crystal diameter. A higher gas-phase proportion in an air-to-water ratio of 1.2 can promote liquid droplet nucleation, compared to an air-to-water ratio of 1.1. However, a low liquid-phase water ratio can limit ice crystal dia-meter growth.