A Simulation Study Of Electric Cable Heating System Used In De-snowing

Accumulation of ice and snow on airport runway is a threat to the safety of airplanes during its take-off and landing. Removing the ice and snow on runways in a fast manner with high efficiency is an important issue.In this thesis, methods of deicing are reviewed. The mechanical methods of removing ice and snow lead to unavoidable damage to the runway surface. A new melting or de-snowing technique is proposed in this thesis:electric cable heating system. First, a preliminary design of the cable de-snowing system is carried out. The design is based on actual runway structure and conforms to various relevant rules and regulations. Secondly, a detailed numerical analysis of the effectiveness of the deicing technique is made. A transient heat conduction model of the structure layer of the runway pavement, along with heating cables embedded, is built. Radiative and convective heat transfer modes are taken into account through appropriate boundary condition treatments at the pavement surface. The transient heat conduction equation is then discretized numerically and the computation procedure is established. Next, actual numerical simulations are carried out. Typical values of relevant physical and numerical parameter are selected. The effects of pre-heating time, ambient temperature, and ambient wind speed on the effectiveness of deicing are analyzed. An overall assessment of the effectiveness of deicing by the proposed technique is given.Finally, a software package that can be used in airport de-snowing system and design is developed and demonstrated. Possible future works that are needed are also discussed.