The effectiveness of roof snow control by sliding mechanism on the sloped roof is widely recognized. On the design of structures that will be constructed in the snowy area, the prediction technique is required to know the flying distance or stack range of roof snow.
This paper presents a simple analytical model that modeled roof snow as a rigid body. This model contains some parameters: eaves height, pitch of roof, horizontal roof length, dynamic friction constant of roofing material and so on, and describes flying distance of roof snow. The differences between flying distance of roof snow by the analytical model and the stack range of roof snow that is defined by a experi-mental equation presented by Nakamura are clarified. Furthermore, the authors proposed chart and table that enable to evaluate roof snow stack without special program codes.

View full abstract

Infra-red thermal mapping is helpful to detect the places on the road surface that are most apt to freeze in winter. To eliminate the influence of vehicle heat on the road surface temperature measurements, the infra-red thermometer was placed inside a heated insulated housing mounted approximately 25cm in front of the vehi-cle. This arrangement gives results that are potentially representative than those obtained by existing systems.
Road surface temperature distribution information obtained by our vehicle-mounted infra-red thermometry can provide critical data that is normally unavail-able and should prove useful to designers of highway icing warning systems. It should be especially helpful in precisely delineating icing-susceptible zones near bridge and tunnel approaches as well as near the edge of road sections with sprinkler type snow melting systems.
Finally, basic countermeasures are proposed to prevent motor vehicle accidents related to road icing.

View full abstract