EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE FORCE
Tese are materials science perspectives— we’re using structure and processing to tune the properties of ice.”
Typically, in the field of materials science, there are standards established by the American Society for Testing and Mate- rials or the International Organization for Standardization. For example, if an aircraft needs to be deiced, the deicing material and the process have specific governing standards. Asenath-Smith explains that currently there aren’t any formal standards that govern ice mate- rials or coating technologies to mitigate ice adhesion. “One example is that if we want to use ice to construct a free-standing bridge over an open gap, there’s no stan- dard to go to. We perform experiments like this at CRREL,” she said. “Tese types of studies ensure that cutting-edge technologies are transitioned to U.S. mili- tary applications and operations in cold and extreme environments.”
But why try to manipulate and control ice? “Ice is an adversary. Ice sticks. It causes catastrophe. It downs planes. It collapses utilities.
Ice creates messes, right?”
Asenath-Smith said. Discovering ways to control ice properties can lead to methods that can mitigate some of the troubles that ice can cause. However, ice serves a dual role in our environment. While it can create dangerous conditions and disruptions, it also is a valuable resource. “Ice can be the only readily available material that you have in the Arctic, and we seek to leverage it to fill deficiencies in the material supply line in regions that are extreme and remote like the Arctic.”
While the ERDC-CRREL team is not at the point of developing new materials just yet, they are researching and testing how some of the already commercially avail- able products can meet specific standards and how they can be applied. Many of us
LEARNING FROM NATURE
An ICE program performer team member inspects an ice sample during the program kickoff event held at ERDC-CRREL in Hanover, New Hampshire. (Photo by Justin Campfield, ERDC-CRREL)
have seen, and maybe even used, a deic- ing material during a winter storm. But can these deicing products be synthesized to meet standards to be used on mili- tary assets? “Some of these products are already commercialized, but they have not been demonstrated on military assets. For example, research on how these materials perform at large scales is needed. Consider the potential cost of coating an aircraft or a ship with a coating that prevents ice adhesion in laboratory studies only to find out that the coating doesn’t mitigate ice in the field scenario or on a large struc- ture,” Asenath-Smith said. “Our research is aimed at transitioning ice and icing technologies to meet these types of needs.”
BENEATH THE ICE An abundance of research and knowledge is coming from laboratory-created ice by analyzing it, creating different scenarios to learn how it behaves and testing vari- ous materials on it to see how it reacts.
But what about outside of the laboratory? Tere is an abundance of natural ice in the environment that has been around for thousands of years.
Tere is a lot that can be learned from naturally occurring ice, especially from a biological standpoint through the practice of biotechnology—the use of living organ- isms to develop technologies and processes that can be used to create new prod- ucts. Robyn Barbato, Ph.D., a research microbiologist at ERDC-CRREL, is performing a wide variety of research as part of the soil microbiology team. Tis involves the exploration of a cold region’s microbiome—which is made up of micro- organisms that have adapted to live and grow in extremely cold temperatures—and extracting and isolating the microorgan- isms, including bacteria and fungi, that are living in the permafrost. “Permafrost is ground that’s been frozen for at least two years. And that is thawing, and the
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