  The safety of rotorcraft operating in cold environments is jeopardised by the
possibility of ice accretion on the rotor blades. Eventually, ice can shed from
the blade due to the high centrifugal forces and impact other parts of the
rotorcraft or unbalance the rotor. To establish the shedding time and location
for rotorcraft, a robust and efficent numerical multi-step icing simulations
tool is presented here for predicting the shedding phenomenon. A volume-mesh
based approach is used to allow for representing the ice shape. In order to
increase the robustness of the method, an interpolation procedure is
implemented which establishes the possible occurrence of the shedding event and
restricts the search domain. Ice shapes along the blades are computed by means
of two-dimensional ice accretion simulations: ice shapes are then interpolated
over the blade span. Numerical results compares fairly well, in terms of
shedding time and location, to the experimental ones obtained in the AERTS test
facility, thus demonstrating the soundness of the present approach.

Numerical Analysis;Numerical Analysis