Sensitivity analysis and practical application of an automatic snow-melting membrane roof

Abstract

In recent decades, numerous membrane structures have been built in the cold regions of China. Nevertheless, uneven snow distribution and snow sliding from the edge of roofs cause frequent collapsing, which threatens people's lives and properties. To prevent the collapsing of membrane structures, we present an automatic snow-melting membrane roof based on an electrical–thermal system (ASMR-ETS) in this paper. ASMR-ETS is environmentally friendly, clean, and can be used for eliminating snow that accumulates on membrane roofs. The most important task in designing ASMR-ETS is the determination of its feasibility. A thermal simulation method for the snow-melting process is described in this paper. The surface temperature was obtained using the commercial software ABAQUS. The applicability and rationality of the thermal simulation were verified via snow-melting experiments. The heating wire spacing and heating wire power were set as heating wire parameters. The wind velocity, solar irradiation, ambient temperature, and snow thickness were selected to be the climatic conditions. The surface temperature of ASMR-ETS was simulated, and the snow-melting performance (snow-free area ratio and coefficient of variation of temperature) was analyzed for different heating wire parameters and climatic conditions. According to the simulation results, increasing the wind velocity and snow thickness decreases the snow-free area ratio and improves the coefficient of variation of temperature, whereas solar irradiation and ambient temperature showed an opposite effect. Furthermore, the snow-melting performance of the membrane structure was studied, and different layout schemes of the heating wire were considered. The results show that ASMR-ETS is practical and can therefore be used to clear snow on membrane structures.