UBCO Team Develops ‘Ice’ Time Saver

Apr 26, 2019 | 9:33 AM

(UBC engineer Kevin Golovin says ice scraping may become a thing of the past. Photo courtesy of UBCO)

A team of researchers at UBC Okanagan has developed an anti-ice coating that may make scraping a vehicle windshield in winter a thing of the past.

The new coating, called low interfacial toughness materials, was announced in a study published in the journal Science this week.

UBC engineer Kevin Golovin says the new coating allows a driver to simply brush ice away or let it slide off a windshield from its own weight.

“For those experienced in the early morning windshield scrape, it should come as no surprise that it normally takes quite a lot of force to remove large areas of ice,” says Golovin, assistant professor at the UBCO School of Engineering and study lead author. “That’s not the case with LIT materials. Imagine simply brushing the ice away or letting it sliding off the windshield from its own weight – that’s how effective LIT materials can be.”

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Golovin says LIT materials work by causing cracks to form easily beneath the ice, allowing it to readily dislodge.

He compares the effect to a string of dominos.

“If designed correctly, the force to knock down a single domino is enough to topple them all – adding more dominoes doesn’t require you to push any harder. It’s the same with LIT materials. Once you form a crack it can de-ice the entire interface, whether it’s the length of a windshield, an airplane wing or a turbine blade.”

Golovin says LIT materials can be fabricated from commonplace paints and plastics but possess superior performance against state-of-the-art anti-icing materials in different applications like the de-icing of power lines, aviation wings and even in complex shapes like ice cube trays.

“Ice buildup has adverse effects on a range of commercial and residential activities, from downed power lines to air travel delays to scraping one’s windshield,” says Golovin. “This development is definitely a game-changer.”

The research, in partnership with the University of Michigan, was funded by the US Office of Naval Research, the US Department of Defense and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

by Beach Radio