Creating clouds for icing research
Posted 23rd February 2023
Emily Timko has the power to control the temperature, form wispy clouds, create ice crystals, and produce powerful gusts of wind. She has a lot in common with Queen Elsa from the movie “Frozen,” but she’s actually much cooler.
Timko is an icing cloud calibration engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. She works with a team of 14 other engineers and technicians to produce clouds in Glenn’s Icing Research Tunnel (IRT).
This wind tunnel is used to simulate natural conditions that can cause ice to form on aircraft during flight and test the effects of these conditions on components such as wings, tails, and engine inlets.