A Flush-Mounted Resonant Ice Detection Sensor with High Sensitivity

An ice detection system consisting of a resonant piezoelectric sensing-element and closed-loop circuit has been developed to automatically and distinctly sense ice films up to 1.3 mm thick. Accretion of ice and/or water on the sensor surface modifies the effective mass and/or stiffness of the vibrating transducer; these variations are sensed by measuring the changes in transducer resonant frequency. In case of ice films, resonant frequency of the transducer increases steadily from 60.9 kHz with no ice to 131.5 kHz when the ice film is 1.3mm thick. The time and temperature stability experiments revealed frequency variety no more than 1 kHz. The resolution of this sensor is better than 0.06mm.