U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

Development of a model for the ice scraping process.

File Language:
English


Details

  • Creators:
  • Corporate Creators:
  • Corporate Contributors:
  • Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Publication/ Report Number:
  • Resource Type:
  • Geographical Coverage:
  • Edition:
    Final report.
  • Corporate Publisher:
  • Abstract:
    A laboratory study has been conducted with two aims in mind. The first goal was

    to develop a description of how a cutting edge scrapes ice from the road surface. The

    second goal was to investigate the extent, if any, to which serrated blades were better than

    un-serrated or "classical" blades at ice removal.

    The tests were conducted in the Ice Research Laboratory at the Iowa Institute of

    Hydraulic Research of the University of Iowa. A specialized testing machine, with a

    hydraulic ram capable of attaining scraping velocities of up to 30 m.p.h. was used in the

    testing.

    In order to determine the ice scraping process, the effects of scraping velocity, ice

    thickness, and blade geometry on the ice scraping forces were determined. Higher ice

    thickness lead to greater ice chipping (as opposed to pulverization at lower thicknesses)

    and thus lower loads. S~milabr ehavior was observed at higher velocities. The study of

    blade geometry included the effect of rake angle, clearance angle, and flat width. The

    latter were found to be particularly important in developing a clear picture of the scraping

    process. As clearance angle decreases and flat width increases, the scraping loads show a

    marked increase, due to the need to re-compress pulverized ice fragments.

    The effect of serrations was to decrease the scraping forces. However, for the

    coarsest serrated blades (with the widest teeth and gaps) the quantity of ice removed was

    significantly less than for a classical blade. Finer serrations appear to be able to match the

    ice removal of classical blades at lower scraping loads. Thus, one of the

    recommendations of this study is to examine the use of serrated blades in the field.

    Preliminary work (by Nixon and Potter, 1996) suggests such work will be fruitful.

    A second and perhaps more challenging result of the study is that chipping of ice

    is more preferable to pulverization of the ice. How such chipping can be forced to occur

    is at present an open question.

  • Format:
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:8f2d9fead5ee683cc506394abe91fa9f5f1e657794ecc5efc675045be7ba46f9
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1.43 MB ]
File Language:
English
ON THIS PAGE

ROSA P serves as an archival repository of USDOT-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by USDOT or funded partners. As a repository, ROSA P retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.