h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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Snow plows are great. They take off the top layer of powdery snow and leave a bottom layer of compacted snow and hardened ice, which is the worst thing in the world for traction. This is because usually, by the time the plow gets around to doing its job, the snow has been sitting on the road for several
hours, days in some places, just compacting and getting harder to remove.
I propose a new kind of plow vehicle, with a scoop on the front and on the back. The front scoop clears off the top layer of snow, and maybe a thin layer of ice.
Hot-air blowers mounted on the vehicle's underbody melt the remaining snow and ice as the vehicle passes over the left-overs. Then, the back-mounted scoop clears the newly-melted stuff with little/no resistance. A box mounted behind the rear scoop scatters a liberal amount of de-icer behind, just in case.
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How slow would this truck have to drive? And would the heat cause the road to buckle due to drastic temp change? These are things I don't know how to compute. |
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Nor do I, unfortunately... is there a math wiz in the house? |
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I dont see why the heat would mess up the road, wouldn't the vehicle being moving fast enough that it wouldn't do any damage to the road? |
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I would think so. I was thinking have the plow going about 20-30 mph (it's usually done late at night anyway, so traffic's not a concern). Position the hot-air blowers along the full length of the vehicle and you should have sufficient heating for the rear scoop to get the stuff missed by the front scoop. |
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Well, the specific heat capacity ice is 2.108 kJ/kgK and the latent heat of melting is 334 kJ/kg. If we assume there's about a metric tonne of snow and ice under the truck at -5C Then that'll require (2.108 x 1000 x 5) + (334 x 1000) = 344540 kJ, or about 344 MJ.
1 joule is 0.0002778 Watt-hrs so that's 96 kW-Hrs of power.
30mph is 44 fps - assume the truck is 44 feet long, then it has to put out 96kW in 1 sec, which is a continuous power output of 5.7MW - Mmmm, hot! |
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Hippo, the problem there lies in the mass of ice to be melted. If it's an inch thick by 44ft long by 8ft wide, that's 29 cubic feet of ice - ah, a tonne almost exactly. As you were. |
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It need not melt completely, just enough for the rear scoop to be able to scrape it up instead of sliding over the top like usual. |
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Ahh yes, lets coat the roads with black ice what fun we'll have. |
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That's why there's a back scoop: to shove the melted slush to the sides of the road. Also why there's a sprinkling of de-icer behind it, to prevent the roads from re-freezing over. |
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I suggest spreading salt / grit, not de-icer; de-icer is environmentally unfriendly. |
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To rid the road of ice, the layer of ice in contact with the road must begin to melt. To achieve this, you've got to get the heat down to that layer, through all the ice above it. Thus you must melt all of the ice. |
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I would suggest that hot air blowers are insufficiently awesome for the purposes. Instead, the snow plough vehicle should be made from wood and fashioned in the style of a viking longboat. The "boat" should be filled with petrol. From each central metal stud of the overlapping Yggdrasil-motifed shields that hang over the sides of the boat will protrude a rubbery hosed bunsen burner, which will blast out columns of driver-controlled yellow or blue flames, which will melt the snow into a torrent of roaring water that will, provided the ship is travelling downhill, foam and rush ahead of the boat, warning those ahead of the arrival of the snowboat. The driver himself will be encased in the dragon-head figurehead, his own head protruding through the top of the wooden casing, sporting an Arthur Brown-style flaming headdress, and will be expected to let forth with a bloodcurdling scream as he hurtles through the wintry scene, leaving clear roads, and a trail of grateful drivers, in his wake. |
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//sporting an Arthur Brown-style flaming headdress, and will be expected to let forth with a bloodcurdling scream as he hurtles through the wintry scene//
"I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE!"
may be an appropriate ululation, Cal? |
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LMAO! That's awesome, Calum! |
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[calum] - how much petrol needs to be
burnt to maintain the 5.7MW power
output (see above)? |
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I thought of that, but I can't imagine how it would work. |
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I have seen snow plows with the salt spreader on the back so after the main layer is scooped the salt and the traffic takes care of the rest. |
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[hippo], I am afraid that I don't know. We may need a bigger boat. |
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