Numerical investigation of anti-icing road surfaces using hydronic heating pavement-parametric study

Abstract

An renewable method to mitigate the slippery condition on road surfaces is to use a Hydronic Heating Pavement (HHP). The performance of the HHP system strongly depends on its design parameters. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of different design parameters of the HHP system on the anti-icing operation of the road surface. A hybrid 3D numerical simulation model of HHP system is used to make simulation. The numerical model is validated by an analytical solution. The validation result shows that the maximum relative error associated with the temperature decline along the pipe is less than 3% between the obtained results from the numerical simulation model and the analytical solution. The results show that the order of parameters, investigated in this study, associated with shortening the number of hours of the slippery condition is: (i) the distance between the pipes, (ii) the fluid flow rate, (iii) the inlet temperature of fluid, (iv) the embedded depth of the pipe and (v) the pipe diameter.