Validation of Liquid Water Content Simulation using the Film Thickness at Stagnation Point

More and more interest is set in ice accretion problem, as it affects the global perfor- mances of an aircraft with catastrophic consequences. One of the problems that makes difficult to study this phenomenon is that it is dangerous to fly in ice condition and ex- perimental wind tunnel test campaigns are the only substitute but are not cheap. CFD attempts to simulate the phenomenon have been carried out, but before ice accretion, researchers have to face with the modeling of impinging water on the surfaces. The aim of the present work is to test the injection droplets model available in the OpenFOAM suite, comparing the numerical results with experimental data in term of water film on the surfaces. Two different formulations were adopted as experimental reference, the first was an approximated one valid for the cylinder, the latter takes into account also the real geometry by solving a Falkner-Skan problem. Both formulas are valid only in the vicinity of the stagnation point, so the results will highlight this region. Both 2D and 3D simulations were performed on NACA 0012 airfoil, with different impinging water conditions.