Influence of Snow Melting System Operation on Temperature Distribution in Hydronic Heated Pavement Structures

To understand the impact of hydronic heated pavement operation on the short-/long-term temperature distribution characteristics in pavement profile, the temperature collected by the thermal sensors from a full-scale hydronic snow melting system was analyzed. The temperature, temperature change rate, and temperature gradient under the plain pavement were compared with that using hydronic snow-melting system. The effect of hydronic heated pavement operation on the short-/long-term temperature distribution characteristics in pavement was illustrated. Test results show that at the beginning of system operation, there is a sharp thermal shock at the pipe-pavement material interface due to the rapidly increasing fluid temperature. With the system operation, the temperature change rate at the pipe-pavement material interface decreases gradually and is much less than the maximum temperature change rate in the plain pavement. Moreover, the temperature gradient in pavement also significantly increases by the system operation. Long-term observation of pavement temperature demonstrated that the release of heat energy in hydronic snow-melting system reduces the heat loss of pavement in winter and delays the degradation of pavement temperature and the development of frozen depth.