Experiments With Sea Spray Icing: Investigation of Icing Rates

Sea spray icing on ships and marine structures depends on a complex correlation between metocean parameters and vessel characteristics. Sea spray icing rates have mostly been investigated and given as a function of general metocean parameters. The existing models suffer from the lack of experimental data. More experimental data are required for better prediction models and understanding of the icing process. This article presents results from a comprehensive cold laboratory study of the dependence and trends of sea spray icing rates related to eight parameters. Experiments were performed simulating sea spray from a nozzle toward a vertical surface in the freezing environment. This study presents 20 unique tests structured into eight experiments, each of which focuses on change in icing rates due to one independent variable. Results showed that the sea spray rate dependence of the investigated parameters complies with the existing knowledge; however, preliminary analysis points out various unintentional covariates for most experiments that call for further investigations. This is the greatest number of variables tested in one set of experiments to date and serves as valuable sea spray icing data experimental data—a limitation for the evaluation of previous models that pointed out the lack of enough icing measurements in this field of research.