Eco-Friendly Snow Melting Systems Developed for Modern Expressways

This study presents environmentally friendly snow melting methods utilizing electric heating cables, ground source heat pumps, tunnel water heat, solar-assisted electric heating cables, and boilers that have been developed and tested at several expressway sections in South Korea since 1996. Compared with a conventional winter maintenance practice based on deicing or anti-icing chemicals, these snow melting systems have little environmental impact (i.e., eco-melting) and are useful in clearing away snow and preventing ice formation promptly without causing long and frequent traffic hold-ups. A comparative evaluation on the eco-melting systems is conducted to characterize their construction and operation features, and the snow melting performance of each system is validated at full-scale test sites under various winter weather conditions. Also, cost analyses are conducted based on the data collected from the field experiments to determine the affordability of each system. Finally, five types of expressway sections (hi-pass toll lane, regular toll lane, an open section between tunnels, curved road, and bridge) that are vulnerable to traffic accidents during winter are prioritized based on three factors (safety, affordability, and environment) for the optimum deployment of eco-melting systems on modern expressways.