Sarvenaz Sobhansarbandi | University of Missouri-Kansas City

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Presentation Description

Slip and fall is a serious concern in cold climates and results in significant liability and snow removal/deicing activity costs. State Departments of Transportation (DOTs), cities, and private entities spend millions each year to provide safe surfaces for vehicles and pedestrians. Safe walking surfaces are fundamentally tied to infrastructure access and lack of snow and ice control disproportionately impacts underserved communities and equitable access to public infrastructure. This project will provide pilot-scale development and verification of a low-cost, self-contained solar ice control system appropriate for implementation at transit stops and high-risk sidewalk locations. Numerous technologies and advances in materials, energy transfer, and artificial intelligence controllability exist to keep the surface of pavement warm and free from snow and ice throughout cold regions. However, systems such as resistively or hydronic heated concrete are expensive and require significant planning for installation during reconstruction activities and in most situations, not practically feasible. Additionally, the practice of applying deicer or anti-icers to infrastructure, while effective, causes deterioration from corrosion and shortened life through deleterious calcium mono-oxide chloride formation in addition to negative impacts on the environment from the non-native salt application. The proposed project herein will implement a micro-radiant heating system (MRHS) as a retrofit layer on the surface of existing concrete pavement. The technology will utilize a combination solar photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system and novel thermally active materials to keep surfaces free of snow and ice. The self-contained system will effectively provide heating, improve safety, reduce winter maintenance, while reducing carbon emissions to the environment compared to existing technologies, and eliminating the usage of deicing salt for the control of ice/snow during cold seasons. To enhance the performance, the system will incorporate low operating temperature phase change material (PCMs) based heat transfer fluid (HTF) and surface composition to circulate/store the energy in the system. The latent heat release from the PCMs provide backup source of energy during days when little-to-no-sun is available. As an additional benefit, the system will reduce the number of freeze-thaw cycles experienced by the pavement, improving long-term durability. Once PCMs’ behavior is evaluated, a small experimental setup will be constructed for the purpose of feasibility analysis. The system will be in extreme summer and winter weather conditions in Kansas City, MO. The achieved results will be the baseline for further modification of system’s configuration/optimization as well as material’s selection before entering the full-scale analysis.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Sarvenaz Sobhansarbandi is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and director of Advanced Renewable/Thermal Energy (ART-E) laboratory at California State University, Sacramento. She is also an associate professor of mechanical engineering at University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Texas at Dallas in 2017. Her research interests include renewable energy, solar energy, computational fluid dynamics/hybrid numerical modeling with the focus on thermal and energy analysis, and design/optimization of thermal management systems. Dr. Sobhansarbandi has gained several years of research experience in the broad area of Thermo-Fluids, particularly solar energy technology, thermal energy storage and nanomaterials. She had exposure to design/modeling of technical issues both by simulation and in real field-testing. Dr. Sobhansarbandi has served as the PI on multiple funded projects from the federal and national organizations such as Office of Naval Research (ONR) and US Department of Transportation (DOT).

Co-presenters

Celine S.L. Lim
University of Missouri-Kansas City

John Kevern
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Presentation File