Experimental study and numerical simulation of sidewalk electrical heating for deicing and snow melting

Abstract

A test model were designed in a constant-temperature laboratory to investigate the thermal conductivity and ice melting effect of pavements with embedded carbon fibre heating wires (CFHWs). The results showed that under simulated winter environmental conditions, the surface temperature of the test piece exceeded the freezing point after heating for 122 min in temperature rise test.Meanwhile,under the same conditions, the 10 mm thick ice layer on the test piece surface in the ice melting test began to melt after heating for 330 min, and all the ice layer had melted after 6 h , indicating that the pavement with embedded CFHWs has good ice melting performance. Moreover, a finite element model for transient heat transfer analysis was established. Combined with the experiments, the relevant parameters of the numerical model were corrected to obtain a more accurate numerical model. The calculations prove that the arrangement spacing significantly impacts the efficiency of the sidewalk for snow melting; the ambient temperature variation will slightly reduce the average rate of temperature rise on the surface of the model; and the ice melting effect of the CFHW with back shape is better than the U shape and the broken line shape under the same circumstances.