A review of ice and snow risk mitigation and control measures for bridge cables
Lubomír Matejícka, Christos Τ. Georgakis
Abstract
The safety of bridge users might be compromised by blocks of ice or snow falling from overhead bridge members following a precipitation icing event occurring under specific atmospheric conditions. Due to the growing number of cable-supported bridges around the world, this type of icing events has been increasingly affecting bridge cables. Numerous ice prevention and removal methods for bridge cables have been tested in the last two decades but none has been widely considered suitable for practical application. The lack of adequate countermeasures usually leads to economically-damaging bridge closures that bridge owners try to minimise through weather monitoring and ice detection techniques. In this paper, basic information about the phenomenon of atmospheric icing and an overview of known incidents are provided. This is followed by a comprehensive review of existing ice prevention, removal, protection and retention technologies adopted or developed for bridge cables.