Measurement of complex dielectric material properties of ice using electrical impedance spectroscopy

Atmospheric icing accretion is an immanent phenomenon in cold climate regions. For critical infrastructure (e.g. power lines), ice coverage can cause severe damage to the infrastructure, or lead to limited system performance. A reliable sensing principle to detect ice accretion, i.e. to distinguish between water layers and ice, is required. In this paper we present a measurement approach based on electrical impedance spectroscopy to observe frequency dependent properties of water according to its state of matter. The feasibility for sensor applications is shown by means of experiments.