Some jet turbine engines include a system for deicing the fan blades to prevent balance/vibration issues associated with the added mass of the accumulated ice. Example fan blades and ice accumulation are shown in figure 1. Most of these systems do not directly heat the blade tips where ice accumulation could cause significant problems. Eddy currents are formed when a moving or changing magnetic field intersects a conductor or vice versa. These circulating eddies of current create electromagnets with magnet fields that oppose the effect of applied magnetic field. Eddy current probes senses this formation of secondary fields to find out the distance between the probe and target material.

Our team collaborated with Mechanical Engineering 36 on this project.