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