Altitude Icing Wind Tunnel

National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
What the facility does

A unique icing wind tunnel with relatively high-speed capabilities particularly suited for testing of instrumentation and viewing microphysical process of ice accretion

Areas of expertise

The National Research Council Canada (NRC)'s Altitude Icing Wind Tunnel is capable of meeting all icing certification and research needs, with a proven track record of providing high-quality repeatable results to clients. The tunnel's comparatively small test section, combined with its relatively high-speed capabilities, make it particularly suitable and efficient to support research organizations and commercial clients. Its ability to simulate flight at altitudes as high as 40,000 ft (12,000 m) makes this facility a unique icing wind tunnel.

Our world-leading experts provide skilled and experienced professional and technical support in all aspects of icing wind tunnel testing including test design, model design and fabrication, instrumentation, test management, through to report preparation. Our expertise also encompasses icing tunnel testing techniques, customized data processing and computational fluid dynamics simulations. Test results from the facility have been accepted by certification authorities such as Transport Canada, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Research services
  • Development, testing and certification of aircraft ice detection and air data probes
  • Development, testing or calibration of aircraft or cloud physics instrumentation
  • Development and testing of de-icing and anti-icing systems
  • Evaluation of ice accretion on non-protected aircraft components
  • Evaluation of instrumentation for the wind turbine industry
  • Validation of numerical ice accretion codes
  • Studies on basic physical processes leading to ice accretion
Sectors of application
  • Aerospace and satellites
  • Automotive
  • Transportation
EquipmentFunction
National InstrumentsTM LabVIEW and MATLABData acquisition software for test specific data reduction
Scanivalve Pressure ScannersPressure scanners with 64 channel high-speed pressure system and multiple individual pressure sensors
Temperature measurement instrumentsTemperature measurement for up to 64 thermocouples or 4 resistance temperature detectors (RTDs)
  • Transport Canada
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
  • Aerosonic
TitleURL
Altitude icing wind tunnel (video)https://nrc.canada.ca/node/866