MODELING OF THE SHORT TERM PAVEMENT SURFACE TEMPERATURE BY METEOROLOGICAL DATA TRANSFER

The road surface conditions are important factors in the driving strategy of road users. In winter conditions the road users depend on the weather, on the road characteristics, on the measures taken to maintain the flow of traffic and of course, on the traffic itself. In this paper, a mod of predicting the short term road surface temperature (3 hours) which takes into account the thermal and physical characteristics of the road along with the weather conditions is described. This model, COGEL combines the program GELID, a model for soil and road behavior, and the program COBEL, a model for the atmosphere. The first program computes the evolution of the temperature field in a multi-layered, one-dimensional structure while the second program predicts fog and computes the conditions of the atmosphere. Comparisons between the field measurements and the predictive model COGEL are discussed in the paper and they show a good agreement between simulations and actual evolutions.