A STUDY ON SNOW STICKING WEIGHT TO WATER-REPELLENT COATINGS

Abstract

When snow or ice sticks to radio communications antennas, it sometimes causes signal transmission problems. In many cases, the degree to which snow or ice sticks to antennas is based on the degree of adhesion. We have been developing water-repellent coatings to prevent such adhesive problems. In this paper, the snow adhesive property of these water repellent coatings is experimentally studied. We obtained following results. (1) Much more fallen snow adheres to FRP samples than water-repellent coatings. (2) Much more fallen snow adheres to samples at +1.5°C than at -5°C. (3) Snow naturally falls off of the surface when its weight reaches a certain value. (4) The estimated value of snow falling off consists with experimental value.