Numerical Investigation of Thermoelectric Heat Pump Deicing for Low-Altitude Aircraft

Abstract

Wing icing poses a significant challenge to the safe operation of battery-powered low-altitude aircraft, while conventional electrothermal deicing is constrained by its high electrical power demand. This study investigates a thermoelectric heat pump (TEHP) deicing method that combines Peltier heat pumping with Joule heating to improve deicing energy efficiency. A multiphysics numerical framework coupling icing, fluid flow, electrical conduction, and heat transfer is developed in ANSYS Fluent using Fluent Icing, the Electric Potential module, and user-defined wall heat-flux expressions. Under the investigated representative icing condition and equal electrical power input, the unit-level COP of TEHP deicing is 3.479–5.88% higher than that of conventional electrothermal deicing under stagnant internal-air conditions. With a 5 m/s internal airflow, the COP improvement increases to 15.7–37.69%. At an input current of 1.5 A, increasing the internal airflow velocity from 2.5 to 7.5 m/s improves the TEHP COP by 12.33–19.86% relative to the stagnant condition. These results demonstrate the feasibility of TEHP deicing and highlight the beneficial role of internal-air heat absorption in improving deicing energy efficiency.