Study on snow melting performance in solar-ground source coupled snow-melting system for pavement

Snow-melting performance was analyzed based on the data collected from a medium scale solar-ground source coupled snow-melting systems for pavement. The temperature distribution in snow melting process was discussed. Besides, the factors which had an impact on snow-melting were also investigated. Test results showed that, there were three periods in snow-melting process heating process at initial stage, steady stage during snow melting, and heating process after snow melting. The variation of surface temperature resulted from the discrete layout of hydronic piping. Besides, results also showed that pipe spacing, embedded depth, flow rate, ambient air temperature had an important impact on snow-melting process. It indicated that satisfactory result would be reached by adjusting related parameter, and this system could be used in a wide temperature range.