Determination of Optimum Salting Rates for Asphalt Pavements in a Canadian Climate

Abstract

Limited field investigations have evaluated the impact of traffic on the snow melting capacity of salts. This paper will describe an extensive field study that includes 1,200 tests that are conducted during 100 snow events over three winter seasons (2012, 2013, and 2014) to quantify the traffic impact on snow melting capacity. The tests will be conducted in an active parking lot, and on parking stalls and driveways, which could increase the applicability of the results to real-world scenarios. The deicing performance of salt will be compared between both areas with different traffic patterns for bare pavement regain time (BPRT). The developed model quantified the reduction in BPRT from 21% for a low traffic volume of 5 vehicles/h to an 86% reduction for a high traffic volume of 50 vehicles/h. The deicing performance models that were calibrated for parking stalls and driveways could be directly used to determine the most cost-effective application rates to treat parking lots and sidewalks based on specific weather, facilities, and traffic conditions.