Establishing Best Practices of Removing Snow and Ice from California Roadways: Fid-Bau Portal

Establishing Best Practices of Removing Snow and Ice from California Roadways

E. Cuelho / J. Harwood / M. Akin / E. Adams

Departments of transportation use a variety of strategies to effectively maintain roadways during winter while considering a number of factors such as level of service, cost, infrastructure and environmental impacts, equipment, and weather. Impacts to infrastructure, vehicles and the environment have motivated the state of California to reduce salt usage on highways. Anti-icing, a winter maintenance strategy based on timely application of winter maintenance chemicals before the onset of a storm, typically uses less chemical to achieve effective results. A lack of established dispersal rates, laboratory studies to verify field studies, and an understanding of the science associated with anti-icing principles have slowed full implementation of anti-icing strategies in California. This research effort focused on synthesizing available information regarding winter maintenance best practices and establishing a set of preliminary guidelines to implement anti-icing strategies in California. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the performance of five typical anti-icing chemicals was conducted. Performance measures included temperature at which the snowpavement bond failed, friction of the pavement surface after snow removal, and snowpavement bond strength. In general, anti-icing methods employed in the laboratory and in full-scale controlled field tests improved the ability of the plow to remove snow from the pavement surface, lowered the temperature at which the snowpavement bond failed, weakened the bond between compacted snow and pavement, and improved pavement surface friction after plowing when compared to untreated pavements. A set of guidelines was developed to initiate implementation of anti-icing practices in California. Further assessments are necessary to optimize this methodology based on specific temperature scenarios, storm types, precipitation levels, and application methods.