Laboratory study on the adhesive properties of ice to the asphalt pavement of highway

- The large-scale freezing laboratory is employed to simulate a freezing environment.
- The magnitude of ice adhesive force to the asphalt pavement surface is measured.
- The relationships between ice temperature and ice adhesive strengths are obtained.
- The effects of ice temperature and pavement roughness are taken into consideration.

Currently, there are few quantitative studies on the adhesion of ice to the asphalt pavement surface. In this paper, a large-scale freezing laboratory is employed to simulate the low-temperature and wet environment, and a full-scale asphalt pavement model is constructed in the freezing laboratory. The experimental schemes are developed to measure the magnitudes of the normal and horizontal adhesive force of ice to the rough asphalt pavement surface. Then, the normal and horizontal adhesive strength of ice is evaluated to quantify the adhesive force per unit rough area, and the effects of ice temperature as well as the mean texture depth of asphalt pavement on the ice adhesive strength are taken into consideration. Based on the test and evaluation results, it is found that the normal and horizontal ice adhesive strength increases with the ice temperature decrease. The adhesive strength in the normal direction exhibits a logarithmic relation to the ice temperature whereas that in the horizontal direction shows a linear relation. The adhesive strength of ice to the asphalt pavement with higher mean texture depth (0.65 mm) is stronger than that with the lower mean texture depth case (0.50 mm).