Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Patterns of Residual Salt on Road Surface: Case Study

Abstract:

A field study was performed in order to investigate the patterns of residual salt on a road surface and the mechanisms involved in transporting the salt off the road into the roadside. The residual salt was measured in nine segments across a road and repeated in 2- to 24-h intervals, depending on the road surface conditions. The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute will implement the results in a winter maintenance management model under development. The results showed clearly that the vehicles were important for redistribution of the salt from wheel paths. A light snowfall increased the salt content in the roadway probably because of redistribution of salt from outside-the-road borderlines by passing vehicles because of increased wetness. The amount of residual salt in the wheel paths could be modeled rather well with an exponential function so that the amount of salt was depending on the accumulated number of vehicles after each salting occasion. A model constant was suggested to be related to the road surface conditions.

Source(s):

6th International Symposium on Snow Removal and Ice Control Technology, Transportation Research Circular, No. E-C063

http://trb.org/publications/circulars/ec063.pdf

Date: 2004

Author:

Blomqvist, Gustafsson

Keywords:


Pavement condition
Winter maintenance
Environment

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