An Environmentally Friendly Asphalt Concrete Containing SiC Aggregate for Microwave Heating Deicing

Abstract

As a green heating technology, microwave heating can effectively reduce the pollution caused during asphalt pavement maintenance. However, lower energy utilization and poorer heating uniformity hinder the further engineering application of this technology. Therefore, silicon carbide (SiC) aggregate with excellent microwave absorbing ability was used to prepared SiC aggregate asphalt concrete (SAC) to improve the energy utilization and heating uniformity. The surface temperature, heating uniformity, deicing time, and heating durability of SAC were studied, and the image processing technology was used to study the temperature distribution. In addition, the energy utilization rate and engineering properties were evaluated. The results show that the surface temperature rise rate and deicing efficiency of SAC is significantly improved. Heating efficiency and uniformity will affect the deicing efficiency together. When the heating efficiency is constant, better heating uniformity is conducive to improving the deicing efficiency. The image processing results show that more SiC content can form more heat conduction channels in the SAC, thus improving heating uniformity. The good stability of SAC is attributed to the stable physical and chemical properties of SiC under microwave heating. Overall, this work contributes to improving the energy utilization and sustainability of asphalt pavements under microwave deicing.