Ice and snow shedding events on cable-supported bridges around the world have become more frequent in recent years. Although they pose a risk to bridge users and lead to lengthy bridge closures, the research so far has focused mainly on the development of various countermeasures and the aerodynamic behaviour of cables with ice or snow accretions. In this paper, a wind tunnel investigation aimed at simulating atmospheric conditions to reproduce natural accretion and shedding of ice and snow from different bridge cable surfaces is presented. The experimental investigation was carried out at two different climatic wind tunnel facilities and involved the use of two different solar simulators to simulate the effect of solar radiation on the melting and shedding process. It was found that both the colour of the cable surface and the surface modifications had a significant influence on the melting and shedding of ice and snow. Whilst the cable colour affected the heating rate of the cable surface and governed the shedding rate of smooth cable sections, the use of surface modifications such as steel wire mesh was more effective in retaining the accretions for longer and breaking them into smaller pieces. The analysis further revealed how the non-uniform heat transfer distribution around the cables affects the surface temperatures at specific locations and how much solar irradiance is approximately transmitted through the accretions onto the cable surface. These findings improve the fundamental understanding of ice shedding from bridge cables and demonstrate the performance benefits of cable surface modifications in terms of risk mitigation for bridge users.

中文翻译：

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表面改性和未改性桥梁缆索冰雪脱落的实验研究

近年来，世界各地缆索桥上的冰雪脱落事件越来越频繁。尽管它们对桥梁使用者构成风险并导致桥梁长时间关闭，但迄今为止的研究主要集中在各种对策的开发以及带有冰雪堆积物的电缆的空气动力学行为上。在本文中，提出了一种风洞研究，旨在模拟大气条件，以再现冰雪从不同桥梁缆索表面的自然积聚和脱落。实验研究是在两个不同气候的风洞设施中进行的，涉及使用两个不同的太阳模拟器来模拟太阳辐射对熔化和脱落过程的影响。研究发现，电缆表面的颜色和表面修饰对冰雪的融化和脱落都有显着的影响。虽然电缆颜色影响电缆表面的加热速率并控制光滑电缆部分的脱落率，但使用钢丝网等表面改性剂可以更有效地保留更长的沉积物并将其分解成更小的碎片。分析进一步揭示了电缆周围的不均匀传热分布如何影响特定位置的表面温度，以及大约有多少太阳辐照度通过吸积物传输到电缆表面。这些发现提高了对桥梁电缆除冰的基本认识，并证明了电缆表面改性在减轻桥梁用户风险方面的性能优势。