Novel fiber optic sensor for ice type detection

This paper reports on a novel fiber-optic ice sensor featuring oblique fiber end-faces, not perpendicular to the fiber axis. The inclination angles of the end-faces were respectively 50° and 30° for the source and signal fiber bundles. Ice-growth curves obtained in an icing wind tunnel showed that with increasing ice thickness, the output voltage of this sensor would reduce rapidly for glazed ice, increase rapidly for rime ice, and make no remarkable change for mixed ice. This significant difference is caused by the different optical intensity distributions for different ice types and can be used to accurately identify the ice type for aerospace applications.

► A novel fiber optic ice sensor with oblique end-faces of source and signal fibers.
► Ice-growth curves quite differ from each other for glazed, rime and mixed ice.
► The sensor can accurately identify the ice type for aerospace applications.