Patent ID: 8217554

Claim:
A method to at least one of remove and prevent ice, mud, debris, or other contamination from attaching to a single or multi-layer isotropic or anisotropic host structure, comprising: placing at least one ultrasonic actuator on the host structure; determining a loading function to create an appropriate shear stress, normal stress, other wave mechanics parameter, or combination thereof, at an interface of the host structure and a contaminant disposed on the host structure at the desired position and depth location; and activating the at least one ultrasonic actuator on the host structure to produce the shear stress via ultrasonic continuous guided wave activation, wherein at least one of ultrasonic initial transient wave propagation, reflection factor superposition, and time modal vibrations are used to at least one of delaminate and weaken the adhesion strength of the contamination to the host structure.