MELTING ANALYSIS OF A THIN SNOW/ICE LAYER ON ROAD SURFACE SUBJECTED TO RADIATION-TRANSMISSION

Abstract

A heat and mass transfer model for a thin snow/ice(s/i) layer on a road was proposed in the present paper and enabled the melting or icing analysis of the s/i layer subjected to the solar radiation and transmission.
The volumetric ice, water and air contents can be calculated by the present model. This made it possible to the calculation of the heat flux taken account of the heat resistance between the s/i layer and pavement surface. The proposed model was evaluated with the results obtained by the snow-melting experiment in a thermostatic cold room and could reproduce the time variations of the height of s/i layer, mass ice content and pavement and s/i temperatures.