The Icing Distribution Characteristics Research of Tower Cross Beam of Long-Span Bridge by Numerical Simulation

Abstract

The cross beam of a long-span bridge will freeze in low temperature. When the temperature rises, the ice on the cross beam will thaw and fall off. If the ice is too heavy, it may cause vehicle damage and casualty. In order to reduce the risk of falling ice, a scale model of the cross beam was taken as an example, and a kind of numerical simulation method is presented to study the icing distribution characteristics on surface of the cross beam. This paper simulates the ice accretions process of the cross beam by Fluent module and FENSAP-ICE module of ANSYS and investigates the influence of wind and temperature in the process. This is a new numerical simulation method for studying ice accretions of buildings. The results indicate that water freezes mainly on the windward surface, and the thicker ice is near the top and bottom edge of windward surface. According to the results of numerical simulation, a measure of ice melting based on electric heating method is proposed in this paper, and the feasibility and effectiveness of this method are verified by numerical simulation. The results show that the icing distribution characteristics are accord with the fact and the ice-melting measure is feasible and effective.