Considering the effects of centrifugal force

a method of numerical simulation for ice accretion on rotor airfoil of helicopter was established. Firstly

the body-fitted and body-orthogonal grids around an airfoil were generated and the viscosity flowfield around rotor airfoil was solved by Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations. Based on the solution of flowfield and Lagrange method

the equations of water droplets motion were established. Then

in order to improve the computational efficiency in searching the position of the water droplet

the method combined with the displacement vector was presented. Finally

in combination with the characteristics of blade motion

a three-dimensional ice accretion model considering the effects of the centrifugal force was presented. The comparison between the calculated results and experimental data indicates that the current approach can effectively simulate the ice accretion on airfoil of blade. Compared with the results of conventional ice accretion model

the amount of ice accretion was reduced by 22.3%. Considering the blade flapping motion

the amount of ice accretion was reduced more. As a result

the importance of the centrifugal force and blade motion in blade numerical simulation of ice accretion was pointed out. Comparing the ice shape and amount of the different sections of blade

the ice accretion characteristics of blade were discussed and analyzed. The results show that the effects of the centrifugal force increase with the increasing radial displacement

and the amount of ice accretion on the rotor lower surface decreases with the increase of the flapping angle.