Model development and prediction of anti-icing longevity of asphalt pavement with salt-storage additive

Abstract

This study established a systematic simulation framework to predict the anti-icing longevity of a thin overlay of asphalt pavement with salt-storage additive (APSSA). The water and chloride transport in the overlay when subjected to varying precipitation, temperature, thermal cracking, and fatigue cracking over time were modeled using a Finite Element Method based software. The simulation included two parts: water transport followed by chloride transport. Water transport that obeys the law of conservation of mass was modeled using the phase transport in porous media (phtr) interface of COMSOL, while chloride transport based on Fick’s second law was modeled with the transport of diluted species (tds) interface. The simulation results show that the anti-icing function of a 16-mm thick overlay was fully effective in 2 years and 5 years for the minimum pavement temperature above -3.4 °C and -2.4 °C, respectively. These two pavement temperatures are equivalent to 97.4-percentile and 96.3-percentile of historical hourly pavement temperature near Pullman, Washington.