Details:

Creators:
Osborne, Leon
Corporate Creators:
University of North Dakota. Surface Transportation Weather Research Center
Subject/TRT Terms:
[+]
Algorithms Freezing Rain Road Weather Information Systems Sensors Weather Conditions Weather Forecasting
Publication/ Report Number:
Aurora Project 2007-04
Resource Type:
Tech Report
Geographical Coverage:
Iowa
OCLC Number:
838631933
Corporate Publisher:
Iowa. Dept. of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
Iowa. Dept. of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration Less -
NTL Classification:
NTL-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT;NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Highway Safety;
Abstract:
The primary goal of this project is to demonstrate the accuracy and utility of a freezing drizzle algorithm that can be implemented on roadway environmental sensing systems (ESSs).

The types of problems related to the occurrence of freezing precipitation range from simple traffic delays to major accidents that involve fatalities. Freezing drizzle can also lead to economic impacts in communities with lost work hours, vehicular damage, and downed power lines.

There are means for transportation agencies to perform preventive and reactive treatments to roadways, but freezing drizzle can be difficult to forecast accurately or even detect as weather radar and surface observation networks poorly observe these conditions. The detection of freezing precipitation is problematic and requires special instrumentation and analysis.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) development of aircraft anti-icing and deicing technologies has led to the development of a freezing drizzle algorithm that utilizes air temperature data and a specialized sensor capable of detecting ice accretion. However, at present, roadway ESSs are not capable of reporting freezing drizzle.

This study investigates the use of the methods developed for the FAA and the National Weather Service (NWS) within a roadway environment to detect the occurrence of freezing drizzle using a combination of icing detection equipment and available ESS sensors.

The work performed in this study incorporated the algorithm developed initially and further modified for work with the FAA for aircraft icing. The freezing drizzle algorithm developed for the FAA was applied using data from standard roadway ESSs.

The work performed in this study lays the foundation for addressing the central question of interest to winter maintenance professionals as to whether it is possible to use roadside freezing precipitation detection (e.g., icing detection) sensors to determine the occurrence of pavement icing during freezing precipitation events and the rates at which this occurs.


Format:
PDF
Funding:
Pooled Fund SPR 72-00-0003-042
Collection(s):
US Transportation Collection
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:d898343fb79b16dd678dfd34bb45aba3c0eb3a2e91cdb8f53762babd0416b39c
Download URL:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/25834/dot_25834_DS1.pdf
File Type:

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