Swish, swish, crunch

Winter is not that far away, which for drivers in northern climates means making sure ice scrapers are handy and hoping their cars' defrosters don't take too long to heat up. But help is on the way, says Victor F. Petrenko, a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering. Petrenko has developed a hot new ice-- manipulating system that uses low-voltage electricity to rapidly and cheaply deice car windshields. A converter transforms the direct current from a car battery into a high-frequency alternating current that nukes the ice away but doesn't heat the surface. It works more quickly than a defroster and uses only a tenth of the energy. Petrenko expects to commercialize the device soon and anticipates that it will eventually become standard equipment.

"We have solved all major technical problems and believe that our deicer can be very cheap" to manufacture, he says. The technology has been licensed to ISDI, a subsidiary of Torvec, a company that makes off-road tracked vehicles. ISDI plans to sublicense it to a large glass manufacturer. Beyond windshields, the technology could also be used to melt ice from other glass surfaces (e.g., headlights and mirrors) and snow from hoods. A related product could be used to give tires better traction on ice. Other potential applications using variations on the basic technology are almost endless: deicing aircraft, roads and bridges, ships, buildings, fiber-- optic cables, non-slip shoes, skis, and cell phone towers-almost anything to which ice can be a nuisance or a hazard. Thanks to Petrenko, winters may soon become less slippery affairs.

Copyright American Society for Engineering Education Sep 2002
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