System Requirements for Electrically Conductive Concrete Heated Pavements

Abstract

Ice and snow on airport pavements can contribute to flight cancellations and delays. Traditional deicing methods that involve chemical or salt application can cause environmental or structural damage to airport infrastructure. Electric heated pavements, in which electric heating energy is transferred to the pavement via embedded insulated conductors or conductive materials to maintain surface temperatures above freezing, have gained attention as a promising technology for mitigating snow and ice accumulation. The objective of the study was to identify the requirements of an electrically conductive concrete (ECON) heated pavement system to achieve cost-effective performance. A small-scale prototype ECON heated slab was designed and constructed with the optimized ECON mixture recently developed at Iowa State University and then tested to determine its performance and efficiency. The energy consumption and energy cost of the prototype ECON slab were found to be the lowest of the electric heated pavement systems developed to date. The cost-effective two-layer design also can be implemented for large-scale ECON-based heated pavements by using a precast concrete technique, concrete overlay, and two-lift paving. From the prototype ECON slab results, a design flow chart and three-dimensional visualizations were developed to discuss the design and construction procedures for real, large-scale applications.