Introduction. To ensure the safety and effective cleaning of highways and sidewalks from snow and ice in winter, it is necessary to use special equipment. But even at the stage of creating such equipment, designers need to know what loads will occur on the working equipment during its operation. Therefore, in order to develop milling working bodies for removing ice from road surfaces, it is necessary to conduct an experimental study in order to determine the loads arising on its working body.Materials and methods. The main purpose of the experimental study is to determine the cutting resistance force that occurs on the cutting element of milling working equipment during its application when cleaning ice and snow on highways and sidewalks. To implement the experiment, a pendulum stand was selected, which allows to study the effect of a separate cutting element of a milling cutter on ice.Results. The results obtained make it possible to predict changes in loads on the milling working body during operation. This makes it possible to develop more advanced designs of road milling equipment and modernize existing ones. The use of these dependencies also enables to determine the necessary structural strength of the milling drum for the normal operation of the equipment and to choose a rational section of the cutting elements.Discussion and conclusions. According to the results of the experimental work carried out, the dependences of the ice cutting resistance depending on the thickness of the cut layer, the type of ice (pure, a mixture of ice, sand and compacted snow with impurities, a mixture of frozen layers, frozen paving slabs and a sample of asphalt concrete) and its temperature were obtained.