Snow melting on the road surface driven by a geothermal system in the severely cold region of China

Snow on roads may cause serious problems such as increasing traffic fatalities, reducing road capacity, and expanding maintenance costs, therefore, snow melting systems are usually essential in this case. A ground source heat pump snow melting system was designed and implemented in the severely cold region of China (Harbin). The experimental conditions were at the snowfall of around 3 cm and the ambient temperatures of −5.9 ~ −4.8 °C. The heating characteristics, road surface temperature, snow free area ratio, and system performances were investigated. The results showed that the supplied fluid temperature could climb to the set value in 30 min, then fluctuated within 1.3 °C. The preheating stage, rapid heating stage, and slow heating stage illustrated the road heating process. The starting stage, rapid melting stage, and slow melting stage demonstrate the snow melting process. The critical value of the snow free area ratio between rapid and slow melting stages was around 0.60. The average COP (coefficient of performance) for the heat pump and the whole system in the whole process were 2.49 and 2.04, respectively. This study provided references for the further optimization and simulation of the hydronic snow melting system in severely cold regions.