Icing monitoring with thickness shear acoustic waves
Abstract
Icing monitoring and ice detection are critical challenges across many industries where ice formation can severely degrade performance or compromise safety. Conventional ice sensing approaches, such as those based on surface acoustic waves (SAWs), often suffer from limited selectivity, fast saturation, and slow or energy-consuming recovery. In this work, we propose the use of thickness shear mode bulk acoustic waves (TSM AWs) as a selective and robust alternative for monitoring icing phenomena, ranging from frozen sessile droplets to ice accretion in near-real scenarios within aeronautical envelopes. The sensing platform consists of a LiNbO3 plate activated through lateral field excitation electrodes and driven electronically by a Vector or Scalar Network Analyzer. This system reliably detects both freezing conditions and temperature variations. Tracking the evolution of the magnitude of the reflection coefficient, specifically, the resonance peak and shape and frequency of|S11| minimum, of a strongly shear dominant mode provides a reliable means to characterize and extract both qualitative and quantitative information about icing processes. Finite element simulations further elucidate the physical mechanisms governing the ice monitoring capabilities. These results position TSM AW devices as promising candidates for a new generation of simple, light-weight, highly sensitive, and robust acoustic wave icing sensors.
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BibTeX
@misc{moral2026icing,
title = {{Icing monitoring with thickness shear acoustic waves}},
author = {Jaime del Moral and Miguel González del Val and Víctor Rico and Juan R. Sánchez-Valencia and Julio Mora and Paloma García Gallego and Francisco Carreño and Andreas Winkler and Agustín R. González-Elipe and Ana Borrás and Stefan Jacob},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.06860},
eprint = {2610.06860},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06860},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Icing monitoring with thickness shear acoustic waves
AU - Jaime del Moral
AU - Miguel González del Val
AU - Víctor Rico
AU - Juan R. Sánchez-Valencia
AU - Julio Mora
AU - Paloma García Gallego
AU - Francisco Carreño
AU - Andreas Winkler
AU - Agustín R. González-Elipe
AU - Ana Borrás
AU - Stefan Jacob
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.06860
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06860
AB - Icing monitoring and ice detection are critical challenges across many industries where ice formation can severely degrade performance or compromise safety. Conventional ice sensing approaches, such as those based on surface acoustic waves (SAWs), often suffer from limited selectivity, fast saturation, and slow or energy-consuming recovery. In this work, we propose the use of thickness shear mode bulk acoustic waves (TSM AWs) as a selective and robust alternative for monitoring icing phenomena, ranging from frozen sessile droplets to ice accretion in near-real scenarios within aeronautical envelopes. The sensing platform consists of a LiNbO3 plate activated through lateral field excitation electrodes and driven electronically by a Vector or Scalar Network Analyzer. This system reliably detects both freezing conditions and temperature variations. Tracking the evolution of the magnitude of the reflection coefficient, specifically, the resonance peak and shape and frequency of|S11| minimum, of a strongly shear dominant mode provides a reliable means to characterize and extract both qualitative and quantitative information about icing processes. Finite element simulations further elucidate the physical mechanisms governing the ice monitoring capabilities. These results position TSM AW devices as promising candidates for a new generation of simple, light-weight, highly sensitive, and robust acoustic wave icing sensors.
ER -