**4. Evaluation of anti**−**/de-icing performance of the DBD plasma-based approach against conventional resistive electric heating methods for aircraft icing mitigation**

As described above, even though both the DBD plasma-based approach and conventional electrical heating method utilize thermal energy to prevent the impinging supercooled water droplets from being frozen to cause ice accretion on the airframe surfaces, the fundamental working mechanisms of the two strategies are quite different for aircraft icing mitigation. It should also be noted that, the conventional electrical heating heaters usually have almost 100% energy efficiency in the sense that all the input electric energy would be converted to thermal energy, while the heating efficiency of DBD plasma actuation was found to vary from 50–90% under different operating conditions [47]. It is highly desirable to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the two different methods for aircraft anti−/de-icing applications. By embedding both a DBD plasma actuator and a conventional electrical film heater onto the surface of the same airfoil/wing model, a comprehensive experimental campaign was conducted to provide a side-by-side comparison between the DBD plasma actuator and the conventional electrical film heater in preventing the ice formation and accretion over the airfoil surface.
