The problem of cleaning the cable-stayed giant bridges from ice and snow

Icing of the cable-stayed giant bridges with a pylon of over 300 m high and cable length and diameter of over 500 and 100 mm, respectively, is typical for many regions of the world, including Russia, especially in the northern latitudes and coastal areas exposed to the ice storms and rains. As a result of thermal and wind effects on the cables, the ice and accumulated snow spontaneously collapse and fall from a great height onto the roadway, which could lead to accidents and damage to vehicles. Many methods of combating cable icing were tested around the world. They could be divided into the following main groups: mechanical (ice removal manually or by means of mechanization); thermal (ice melting due to external or internal heat supply to the cable shells); passive (anti-adhesive coatings application), and robotic mechanical. The conducted analysis shows high labor intensity of the manual method and inefficiency of the others, as well as the prospects for robotic cleaning the giant bridge cables from ice and snow. The paper proposes a concept of construction and the kinematic power physical model of the self-propelled robotic system Cable-stayed Icebreaker for mechanical cleaning of the giant bridge cables from ice and snow based on the octahedral mechanism of parallel structure.
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