Sustainability Assessment of Pavement De-icing and Anti-icing Methods

Dear Colleagues,

In many parts of the world, removing ice and snow from pavement surfaces is an important element in transportation network resilience planning. Operational safety of paved areas, especially in critical infrastructures such as airports, bridges, and highways under harsh winter conditions, is a major concern for the public and private sectors. Various methods for keeping pavements free of ice and snow have been developed and improved over the years by tremendous intellectual and financial investments from researchers, engineers, operators, companies, institutions, and agencies all around the world. Traditional approaches are based on the application of de-icing chemicals and/or sand on the surface or mechanically removing the accumulated frozen objects on the surface. Practical shortcomings and environmental concerns associated with traditional approaches have given rise to alternative methods for keeping pavements ice and snow free. Some prominent examples of relatively newer technologies for pavement de-icing/anti-icing applications are heated pavement systems, and water-repellent and/or ice-phobic pavements.

Ice-and-snow-removal operations occur on such a large scale that, independent from the methods involved, they have considerable environmental and economic impacts. Therefore, it is timely to foster a sustainability-oriented body of literature that covers various traditional and innovative methods used for keeping paved surfaces free of ice and snow. This Special Issue aims to encourage researchers to share their research related to the sustainability assessment of the methods, materials, operations, and processes involved in the treatment of ice and snow on pavement surfaces. We welcome original research or review articles with a clear application focus in these areas.

Sincerely,

Dr. Alireza Sassani
Dr. Ali Arabzadeh
Dr. Nima Esmaeili
Guest Editors

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