Ice melting properties of steel slag asphalt concrete with microwave heating

Abstract

The ice on the surface of asphalt pavement in winter significantly influences the road transportation safety. This paper aims at the improvement of the ice melting efficiency on the surface of asphalt pavement. The steel slag asphalt concrete was prepared and the high ice melting efficiency was achieved with the microwave heating. A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the ice melting performance of steel slag asphalt concrete, including the heating test, ice melting test, thermal conductivity test and so on. The results indicated that the microwave heating of steel slag concrete can improve the efficiency of deicing, mainly because the heating rates of steel slag asphalt mixture are much better than traditional limestone asphalt mixture. According to different thickness lever of ice, the final temperatures of each sample were very close to each other at the end of melting test. It is believed the thickness of the ice has a limited impact on the ice melting efficiency. According to the heating tests results, the bonding of ice and asphalt concrete is defined failure at the moment when the surface temperature of the ice reached 3 °C.