title: Thermal Alternating Polymer Nanocomposite (TAPNC) Coating Designed to Prevent Aerodynamic Insect Fouling.
abstract: Insect residue adhesion to moving surfaces such as turbine blades and aircraft not only causes surface contamination problems but also increases drag on these surfaces. Insect fouling during takeoff, climb and landing can result in increased drag and fuel consumption for aircraft with laminar-flow surfaces. Hence, certain topographical and chemical features of non-wettable surfaces need to be designed properly for preventing insect residue accumulation on surfaces. In this work, we developed a superhydrophobic coating that is able to maintain negligible levels of insect residue after 100 high speed (50 m/s) insect impact events produced in a wind tunnel. The coating comprises alternating layers of a hydrophobic, perfluorinated acrylic copolymer and hydrophobic surface functional silicon dioxide nanoparticles that are infused into one another by successive thermal treatments. The design of this coating was achieved as a result of various experiments conducted in the wind tunnel by using a series of superhydrophobic surfaces made by the combination of the same polymer and nanoparticles in the form of nanocomposites with varying surface texture and self-cleaning hydrophobicity properties. Moreover, the coating demonstrated acceptable levels of wear abrasion and substrate adhesion resistance against pencil hardness, dry/wet scribed tape peel adhesion and 17.5 kPa Taber linear abraser tests.
authors.affiliation: Smart Materials, Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Ilker S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Bayer
authors.affiliation: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, VA, USA.
authors.forename: K Ghokulla
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Krishnan
authors.affiliation: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Robison
authors.affiliation: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Loth
authors.affiliation: The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Berry
authors.affiliation: The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.affiliation: The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Crouch
mesh_terms: D000401:Aircraft; D000818:Animals; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions / Q000187:drug effects*; D007313:Insecta; D053761:Nanocomposites / Q000737:chemistry*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D012822:Silicon Dioxide