Abstract
In order to melt snow on the roofs of a four-span greenhouse, several methods using the heated air through ducts onto the internal roof surfaces using hot air heater were investigated.
The performance of melting snow decreased with the distance from the end of the horizontal duct under the roof for each method. This may have resulted from a decrease in air temperature and velocity in the horizontal ducts with the distance from the end of the horizontal duct under the roof. When the melting snow system was automatically turned off at an hour after it stopped snowing, no snow was observed on the roofs.
The maximum melting rate of snow during the experiment was 1.6kg/m2/h (38kg/m2/d), and corresponded with that for the 15-year return period expectation of snow load for the experiment site.
