Numerical simulation of snow melting on pavement surface with heat dissipation pipe embedded

Abstract

Programmed software was developed in order to numerically simulate time variation of the temperature field and snow depth around a pipe-in-pile snow-melting system, using meteorological data. The system utilized underground piles as the heat exchanger between underground soil and water flowing inside the pipes. The water was pumped into heat dissipation pipes embedded beneath the pavement surface, on which snow melted. The unsteady three-dimensional heat conduction inside the pavement and the underground soil was numerically solved. On the surface, the heat balance of conduction, convection, and radiation was considered. Snow fall depth was estimated by rainfall weather data, ratio of snowfall to rainfall, and dry density of snowfall. For simulating the snow layer, an unsteady one-dimensional heat conduction was solved while incorporating partial absorption of solar radiation. Experiments for measuring time variation of the temperature field and snow depth around the system were conducted for verification of the software. The obtained simulation results showed good agreements with experimental data, demonstrating the utility and validity of the software.

Numerical simulation of phase transition problems with explicit interface tracking

“…Phase transition process plays crucial roles in a variety of scientific, engineering, and industrial processes, including diamond crystal growth [1], the formation of mineral deposits, processing of advanced ceramic materials and coatings [2], weather forecasting [3], melt extraction from Earth's upper mantle [4,5,6], geochemical self-organization [7], and environmental contaminant transport [8]. The phase transition problems have been studied by different kinds of approaches: from experimental researches [4,9,10], to numerical simulations [11,12,13,14,3,15]; from solving partial differential equations [16,17,18,7,12,19], to statistical analysis [20,21,16,22], such as random network models to capture the stochastic nature of the phase transition process.…”

“…The results indicated that this approach allows reproduction of measured melting and freezing temperatures as functions of solution molality and pressure over wide ranges for many geophysical applications. Nagai et al developed a simulation method for calculating heat transfer around a pipe-in-pipe snow melting system and simulated time variation of temperature field and snow depth around the system [15]. By comparing with the experimental data, they concluded that snow melting ability and snow residue situations of this system are predictable.…”

Heat-exchanger piles for the de-icing of bridges

“…Most research on this topic has centred around the behaviour of the deck [16] and the development of usable software for the design of such systems [22,24]. Most of the recent research on improving the method and reducing its cost has been performed by Miyamoto and Takeuchi [21], who found that using the bridge foundation as a heat exchanger decreased the cost considerably (up to 33 % of the cost of heating the entire bridge) when compared to dedicated borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) [20].…”

Structural Solutions Impact on Thermal Energy Efficiency of Heating Surface at an Open Space

“…Hence, the highest priority being safety of drivers and pedestrians, and as far as grass surfaces are concerned, e.g. sports fields -extending their period of usability, heating systems for open spaces (hydronic snow melting systems) were introduced, as an alternative to traditional methods (Lund 2000;Liu et al 2007;Wang et al 2008;Nagai et al 2009). In such snow melting heating system the heated fluid is circulated through the pipe circuits, usually laid in a serpentine configuration, just below surface and the heat is transferred from the heat carried fluid to the upper surface by conduction.…”