Ice adhesion on different microstructure superhydrophobic aluminum surfaces

摘要

The adhesion of ice to high -voltage overhead transmission lines should be small to ensure ease of ice shedding under small external forces. In this work, we studied the influence of the microstructure of superhydrophobic surfaces on the strength of ice adhesion at a working temperature of -6°C. Compared to a bare aluminum surface, the microstructure superhydrophobic aluminum surfaces did decrease ice adhesion strength. The superhydrophobic aluminum surfaces with a larger number of micro-holes produced the lowest strength of ice adhesion; its ice adhesion strength was ～163.8 times lower than that for the bare aluminum samples. Furthermore, such microstructure aluminum surfaces had water contact angles larger than 150° and water sliding angles of less than 8.2° even at a working temperature of -6°C. The low values of the ice adhesion strength of the above samples were mainly attributed to the superhydrophobic property, which was obtained by creating a structure of micro-nano-scale holes on the aluminum surface after treatment with a low- surface-energy fluoroalkylsi-lane (FAS).