A device capable of breaking up snow and ice buildup on roads without damaging the road surface is being tested at the Sholom-Aleichem Amur State University.
The development of students and graduate students based on Russia's only university-based ice technology laboratory is equipped with a series of discs up to 40 cm in diameter. They are conjugated with each other in the direction of movement at an angle of more than 180 degrees. The discs passively rotate from the towing force and friction forces between them and the buildup surface.
To create the necessary shearing forces, the elements are loaded with a corresponding vertical load. The edge of each disc has a sharpening angle that ensures maximum intensity of chipping of ice and snow buildup. The distance between them is chosen to ensure separability of buildup fragments from the road surface.
The prototype device has shown that it is capable of breaking up buildup up to 20 centimeters thick without the use of special cleaning equipment and harm to the road surface. A special training ground was built at ASU for its testing. The research was conducted within the framework of the Far Eastern track of the Priority-2030 program of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia (national project "Science and Universities").
Now the university is preparing to create similar prototypes and devices for solving specific tasks in the fields of housing and communal services, road and airfield services. They are also preparing for testing a patented suspension system for cutting elements, which will help eliminate damage to road infrastructure when cleaning roads.
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