Marine icing sensor array for measuring ice thickness

Marine Icing is the process of ice accumulation on ships and other offshore structures in cold regions that can create serious working conditions besides the adverse effects to the offshore operations efficiency. Monitoring of icing conditions together with a number of de-icing strategies is therefore important in decreasing the safety hazards and increase the working effectiveness. Detection of the ice accretion rate on the offshore structures is a challenge due to the harsh environment and the multiphase property of the ice. This thesis is focused on developing a low cost array sensor for the ice accretion detection applicable to the harsh marine environments. We utilized a stray-capacitance technique that encodes a layered multiphase icing accretion uniquely. Capacitive sensors are popular in diverse industrial settings due to their relative simplicity, robustness and low cost. The sensor transducers are compatible with the printed circuit board technology which made this research time effective. The thesis is based on three distinct publications, two journal papers (IEEE, MDPI) and one peer-reviewed conference paper (IEEE), each in a separate chapter. All publications include a theoretical background, simulations, and experimental validation. The underlying novel approach that is more or less shared in all applications is the use of linearly independent sensor array for unique multiphase ice detection. The first two papers utilize a different inter-electrode spacing array but a different signal conditioning algorithm. The third paper then uses an array of constant spacing but different dielectric layer height. As stated above, the main objective of this work is to measure the multiphase icing accretion which consists of water above ice, the real situation which has not been addressed to date. A number of different techniques have been developed over the last two decades mainly as a response to the rapidly expanding offshore oil&gas in northern regions, offshore wind power generation, or shipping across or fishing in arctic waters. This thesis outlines three methods that can be directly applied to these industries