Concrete pavement deicing with carbon fiber heating wires

A method of deicing with carbon fiber heating wires (CFHWs) embedded inside concrete slabs is presented in this paper to avoid the adverse effects of traditional deicing salt on the structure, function, and environment. To meet the uniform temperature requirement on the road surface for deicing, the maximum allowed CFHW spacing is determined by the finite element method and laboratory experiment. A heating experiment on concrete slabs with CFHWs is then conducted in a refrigerator at −25 °C. It is shown that, with an input power of 1134 W/m2, the temperature on the slab surface rises above 0 °C in 2.5 h at an approximate rate of 0.17 °C/min. Finally, a field experiment is conducted to further verify the validity of the proposed method of deicing with CFHWs.