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The main purpose of this project is to find a way to detect ice formation on roads and highways. Ice on the road, and especially ice on bridges, poses a very big threat to all drivers. Eighty-five percent of all ice storm related deaths are traffic related. Since ice can form only under certain conditions, this project seeks to monitor the road for the presence of those conditions in order to have a successful detection.
The main conditions of ice formation are the existence of water and below freezing temperatures. Even though these may occur at the same time it is not always the case that ice forms. For this reason, this project uses the property of water which states that while changing states from liquid to solid, the substance will stay at the same temperature until all particles have lost enough energy to turn into ice. By constantly measuring the temperature of the road through a drilled-in thermochron, a graph that shows the temperature as time goes on can be drawn. In this graph, flat lines will occur whenever there is a change of state and by detecting these flat lines the presence of ice can be determined.
The data shows that whenever precipitation and below freezing temperatures occurred for some time, the temperature graph of the asphalt showed a flat line. The prediction and detection procedures of this project seem to be successful in achieving their goals.
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