Open rotor aircraft engines represent a significant advancement in aviation, offering improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions compared to traditional turbofan engines. Their open-blade design enhances aerodynamic performance, making them a promising solution for sustainable aviation. Open rotor technology will play a key role in future hybrid-electric and fully electric aircraft by providing high propulsion efficiency at lower energy consumption.
The exposed nature of open rotor blades presents particular challenges regarding inflight icing. Ice accumulation can severely impact aerodynamic performance, efficiency, and safety, making effective ice protection systems essential.
The NORIS project aims to enhance the safety, efficiency, and reliability of future open rotor aircraft engines under icing conditions. NORIS focuses on improving Austria’s test capabilities, documentation methods, and ice protection solutions for propeller icing. It will enhance test infrastructure, including FH JOANNEUM’s icing chamber and RailTec Arsenal’s large icing wind tunnel and propeller test rig, enabling high-fidelity investigations of propeller ice accretion and shedding under realistic flight conditions. High-quality data generated by advanced documentation methods of AIIS will be used to improve numerical prediction tools for propeller icing of AeroTex and Austrian Institute of Technology. These facilities will support the development of innovative Austrian ice protection solutions for propellers, specifically Advanced Thermal Technologies’ electrothermal system and TU Vienna’s ice phobic laser structuring technology.
Through collaboration with research institutions, industry, and regulators, NORIS significantly strengthens Austria’s position as a leader in icing research for safe and efficient aviation and will further expand the field of expertise to testing of sustainable open rotor propulsion under icing conditions.
NORIS is submitted in cooperation with a German LUFO project submission on passive ice protection systems, submitted by a consortium led by General Electric.
