Numerical simulation and experimental validation of lattice structures for an innovative anti-ice leading edge

Nowadays, metallic additive manufacturing technology represents a huge in-novation field for the aerospace industry. In this context, 3D printed trabecular structures seem to be very promising for application in light and multifunctional structures. This particular class of materials, allowed by these novel manufactur-ing processes, represents an evolution with respect the classic metal foams in terms of mechanical and thermal performances, passing from a stochastic to a deterministic control of the material. Many studies have been conducted in order to understand their effective applicability in modern engineering solutions. As concern this thesis work, it participates in the development process of an innova-tive integrated ice protection system for aircraft wing leading edges, with a study and a verification of 3D-printed lattice structures and their heat transfer efficien-cy. The study is conducted on additive manufactured sandwich panels with cores in trabecular structures and with heated air flowing through them. Different types of trabecular structures and different porosity values for the panels cores are considered. The main part of the thesis dissertation consists on a comparison between an extensive CFD simulation campaign and an accurate experimental work to understand the flowfield and the heat transfer phenomena established in-side of the sandwich panels. After having argued the problem of the ice accretion on aircraft during the flight, all the current solutions have been presented specifying their conceptual functioning and the respective criticalities. They are compared with the novel in-tegrated system proposed, making clear the enhancements that it could entail. Metal additive manufacturing technology has been exposed as well as the tra-becular structures with their main characteristics. A wide bibliography research on metal foams has been conducted by virtue of their similarity with the trabecu-lar structures of this case study. Afterwards, the CFD analysis and the experi-mental workflow with their settings and the results obtained are presented. Last-ly, to compare the performances with a flying case, the wing anti-ice system of P-180 is analysed by CFD simulation.