About IWAIS

The international Workshop on Atmospheric Icing of Structures is a forum of scientific and technical exchanges for stakeholders concerned with improving their understanding of natural icing phenomena, their mapping, and their effects on the functionality and performance of exposed structures and equipment. Recent studies about the non-stationary nature of our local and global climates show that extreme climatic events and ice storms in particular are more likely to occur in many regions, and icing hazards have increased in areas that were not considered at risk only a few decades ago. Sharing knowledge and successful practices in mitigating the effects of atmospheric icing is more relevant now than ever. 

Traditionally, IWAIS has brought together participants from the fields of earth and meteorological sciences, materials sciences and several engineering disciplines that cover many practical applications with a focus on overhead power lines. In the last decade, we have witnessed increased participation from stakeholders of other exposed structures such as wind turbines, oil rigs, telecommunications structures, and so on. Indeed, interdisciplinarity is key in tackling atmospheric icing challenges.

In the last 40 years, thousands of participants have gathered for 18 IWAIS meetings in 12 cold climate countries. The first IWAIS conference was held in 1982 in Hanover, USA, and the 18^th meeting was hosted in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2019.

Previous Conferences