Journal of Cold Regions Engineering

Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.

This paper presents the results of an extensive field study of the comparative deicing performance of conventional dry road salt and prewetted road salt for the snow and ice control of transportation facilities. Approximately 500 tests in side-by-side sections were conducted in a real-world environment, covering a wide range of weather conditions in 31 snow events. This paper compares the snow melting performance of prewetted salt to that of regular road salt in terms of bare pavement regain time. The pair-wise study conducted confirmed that, despite the lower amount of sodium chloride (i.e., using approximately 20% less salt) in the prewetted salt, the two types of treatments performed similarly in terms of bare pavement regain time. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed to identify the factors that are associated with the relative performance of prewetted salt as compared to dry salt. The modeling results indicate that the performance advantage of the prewetting strategy decreases as the amount of snow present or the moisture content of the snow increases. This research has provided quantitative evidence on the relative effectiveness of prewetting under specific pavement surface and weather conditions.

Icing caused by the construction of cut-slope roadways is a severe problem in cold regions and is difficult to mitigate. This study proposes a method for preventing icing on cut-slope roadways. A new structure for icing prevention was designed and constructed in the field. The key points of the proposed structure are the layered insulation drainage ditch and insulated facing wall. This structure is designed to ensure that water outcrops located on cut slopes and the groundwater drainage ditch remain unfrozen during winter. Surface water is drained through an upper open gutter during the warm season, and groundwater from the cut slope is drained through the insulated blind ditch. The air temperature, ground temperature under the pavement, and temperature of the stone blind ditch are presented and analyzed. The field experiment proved that the proposed structure performs well and effectively mitigates icing on cut-slope roadways.

The peat assessed in this study is Sphagnum moss that formed during the Holocene in wetland bogs around Anchorage, Alaska. Undisturbed peat in these bogs has a water content that ranges from 400 to 1,000% and averages 620%. An assessment of this peat’s compressibility was made by measuring the water content, specific gravity, and degree of saturation of 10 sample sets obtained from five bogs. At four bogs, this peat had been compressed by either fill or aeolian silt for 50 days to 7,500 years. At the fifth bog, this peat was compressed under its own weight after being drained with ditches. Statistics were performed to calculate the average and standard deviation of water contents for each sample-set. Based on these average water contents, two characteristic stages of peat compression under a 15 to 70 kPa overburden pressure are identified: noncompact compression ($C_a=1.2$), followed by compact compression ($C_a=0.15$). The transition from noncompact to compact compression occurs in 20 years or less, and around an average void ratio of 3.5. For undisturbed peat, the average settlement ratio ($\mathrm{\Delta }H/Ho$) is 0.6. The peat’s compression can be interrupted by frost action.