Aircraft Deicer - As you sit on the runway, watching the snow, sleet, or freezing rain, and thinking about how to cover your car, your house, or the sidewalk, imagine covering an airplane. what you are about to ride. get off. While ice on your property or on the side of the road may scare you, ice on an airplane is a big safety concern. It is not like ice is heavy or will freeze any vital part of the aircraft, making it unsafe. That is, some ice on the plane will disrupt the air around the plane's wings and affect lift, which is the plane's ability to fly. That's not something you want to put on ice, or anything.
De-icing is the process of removing ice from an aircraft. The second step, called antifreeze, may also be necessary to prevent ice from forming after it has been removed. Here's how these two methods work to keep planes, and their crews and passengers, safe in the sky.
Aircraft Deicer
De-icing agents are chemical compounds of glycol and water. Glycol lowers the freezing point of a liquid, water [source: Ritter]. Agents are used in different ways for different weather conditions, but regardless of how it is done, the mixture is used in the same way. It is heated and sprayed with a hose on the plane to remove snow, ice or frost. Pilots request the removal of icing when necessary and control the operation, which must be carried out in accordance with the detailed rules of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In fact, the FAA rules chapter on de-icing is over 30 pages long and covers everything from the structure and handling of de-icing compounds. icing to its use, how soon it should be used, and the documents required after the person is reduced.
Airport Ground Crew Spraying Deicing Fluid On Boeing 737 Plane Wing To Remove Ice And Snow Prior To Takeoff In Winter Stock Photo
Speed and thoroughness are essential in using a de-icer. Therefore, requests must be made in a timely and systematic manner, taking into account the so-called lead time, how long after de-icing before the aircraft re-freezes and needs to be re-frozen. treated again. The storage time varies depending on the composition of the mixture and is set by the manufacturer of the liquid. Since de-icing compounds cost upwards of $5 per gallon, this process can cost thousands of dollars (taking into account handling and storage costs), so it's important that storage times are not exceeded. [source: Smith] . The wait time also explains why de-icing is done after everyone has boarded and the plane is ready to take off. The wait time can only be a few minutes, so the plane should be ready to taxi and take off immediately after the antifreezes have been added.
De-icing agents are usually not designed to prevent ice or frost from forming on an airplane. Therefore, if there is heavy snow, sleet or freezing rain during the flight, the aircraft may also require de-icing to prevent the ice from forming before the flight. it leaves. Anti-icing fluids are also made of glycol and water, but with a higher concentration of glycol than de-icing water. A thickener is added to help the mixture stick to the aircraft during takeoff.
A thin layer of antifreeze agent is sprayed evenly on the aircraft as needed. The FAA recommends that anti-icing agents be used within three minutes of deicing and not be used at all if the de-icing fluid is frozen or frost has formed on the aircraft. If any of these conditions occur, the defrost must be done again before using the antifreeze liquid.
If the aircraft is covered with only frost, rather than ice, it is possible to de-ice and prevent ice at the same time. In this case, anti-icing fluid is used and it works both as a de-icer, to melt the frost, and anti-icing, which protects the aircraft from moving forward.
Ask The Captain: How De Icing Is Done
Ground crews and flight crews must work together to make decisions about which surfaces need to be cut and the best method to use based on temperature and weather conditions. De-icing and anti-icing procedures are usually performed at the gate, although they can be performed at remote locations; Also, the concern is to get the plane off the ground in a timely manner once the water is applied.
The FAA recommends that two to four deicers be used for commercial aircraft. The process starts at the front of the fuselage, works behind the wings, then the aft fuselage, the fixed stabilizer, and finally the stabilizer (the last two are parts of the tail of the aircraft).
When the aircraft itself is in the air, it is equipped with anti-icing systems to cover the surface. These systems are important in the summer, as well as in the winter, because the temperature in the highlands is below freezing all year round. In most commercial aircraft, ducts carry the hot air produced by the engines to the wings and tail to keep them warm and prevent icing. In some aircraft, balloon-like objects are inflated and inflated to destroy any interior. Aircraft also have limitations built into each of these systems to ensure that if there is a problem with one, the other system takes over the anti-icing system.
While passengers may worry about flight delays that may accompany the cancellation of their flight, there are also bigger issues. Flight delays can disrupt the journeys of thousands of passengers at airports across the US and around the world, even at airports with hot, sunny weather. In addition, there are concerns about the environmental impact of antifreeze, which can be sprayed on many aircraft in a short period of time, and many liters of the lubricant fall to the ground.
Where Does All That Deicing Fluid Go? At Pit, It's Recycled
New research, inspired by the nature of the poisonous frog, may make thawing a more efficient and environmentally friendly method in the future. Poison frogs have a double skin: an outer layer that can detect threats and an inner layer that releases poison when the frog is threatened.
A scientist developed a melting method that would work in the same way. The outer skin of the plane would be superhydrophobic, meaning that water droplets would fall on it. If the weather was very bad and the droplets started to freeze in the plane, the interior would feel frozen and release the antifreeze from the inside, flowing through the "skin" outside. of the plane. This would reduce the aircraft only where it is needed, not in bulk, as is done now. Although this research (published in a 2015 journal) was successful in the laboratory, it's likely years, maybe even decades, away from regular use on airplanes [source: Casey].
Until then, try to stay calm and be patient if your flight is delayed due to snowmelt. Because of the FAA's detailed and successful de-icing operations, aircraft crashes due to ice on the wings or other parts of the aircraft have become extremely rare.
My father is a pilot, just a private jet, so I have received a lot of information over the years about airplanes and flying. However, we have both lived in the south, where flying is not an everyday occurrence. The next time I hear about a flight delay due to a meltdown, I'll be even more thankful that I live in a generally sunny place, and I'll thank the chemists who made ingredients that make air travel safe.
How Aircraft De Icing Works
Special offer on antivirus software from HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security Try our word puzzles! Can you solve this problem? Melting is the process of removing snow, ice or frost from the surface of water. Anti-icing is the use of chemicals that not only reduce but also remain on the surface of the water and continue to prevent the formation of ice for a certain period of time, or to prevent ice from sticking to facilitate removal. machines.
Melting can be achieved by mechanical means (crushing, pushing); by using heat; with the use of dry or wet chemicals designed to lower the freezing point of water (various salts or brines, alcohols, glycols); or by combining these different methods.
Normally, road de-icing is done with salt, which is spread with snow plows or dump trucks designed to spread it, usually mixed with sand and gravel, on slippery roads. Sodium chloride (rock salt) is often used, as it is cheap and readily available in large quantities. However, since salt water freezes at -18 °C (0 °F), it is useless if the temperature drops below this point. It also has a tendency to cause corrosion, corroding the steel used in many vehicles and reinforcing bars in concrete bridges. Depending on the concentration, it can be toxic to some plants and animals, and some urban areas have moved away from it as a result. More specific snow melters use other salts, such as calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, which not only lower the freezing point of water to very low temperatures, but also produce an exothermic effect.
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