Thermal performances of porous snow by a hydronic heating system at different weather conditions

Abstract

The snow on the road in the cold regions is easy to cause slippery conditions, which are dangerous for vehicles and people. To remove the slippery conditions, the hydronic snow melting system has been applied to remove the snow on the road. This study proposed a transient finite volume model with snow porous characteristics, to analyze the snow melting performances by a hydronic heating system. Three primary environmental parameters (snow thickness, wind velocity, and air temperature) were selected to compare the average road surface temperature and snow melting ratio. Then, the snow melting performances using a hydronic road heating system were analyzed. The results showed that the snow melting ratio was rapidly dropped as the snow thickness was increased from 10 to 90 mm. The snow thickness had a slight influence on the average road surface temperature in the melting process, whereas it had a significant impact after the snow was completely cleared. When the wind velocity was increased to 5 m s−1, the critical melting ratio appeared at around 0.7. The wind velocity had a significant influence on average road surface temperature when the average road surface temperature increased more than 273.15 K. There is a critical air temperature existed between 263.15 and 258.15 K, which limits the snow melting process at current supplied fluid temperature (313.15 K), indicating that more energy was need to supply to overcome cold weather. This study offers a good reference for the design of a hydronic snow melting system in severely cold regions.