Recently, Sichuan Province’s first expressway with “self-contained floor heating”—Jiu (Zhi) Ma (Erkang) Expressway was officially unveiled. The highway has an average altitude of 3,300 meters, and heavy snowfall occurs in October. But under the influence of the electric blanket on the road,When flying snow falls on the road, it can turn into water in 3 to 40 seconds. This also means that even if the expressway encounters heavy snowfall, there is no need to close the road or spread salt and snow to ensure normal traffic throughout the day.
According to reports, as early as 2021, the Pavement Branch of Sichuan Communications Construction Group and relevant research units formed a research team to enable the highway to "make blood" and "heat" by itself.
To achieve this goal, the project team built a technical system that integrates power generation, energy storage, heating, and intelligent control.
Zheng Mao, chief engineer of the Pavement Branch of Sichuan Communications Construction Group, said that the guardrails and sound barriers of the Jiuma Expressway are covered with 1.2-meter-high, 3.2-mm-thick cadmium telluride film glass. This glass is suitable for cold environments and does not spontaneously ignite. It can also generate electricity under low-light conditions. The annual power generation per kilometer reaches 657,000 degrees, which is 12% more efficient than traditional crystalline silicon power generation.
“Let it bask in the sun for one hour during the day, which is enough to heat the road for a week. The electricity generated by this demonstration section in one year can be used by 400 herders for one year.
Engineers work between the middle and upper layers of road asphalt,Laying a 4cm thick graphene-PTC composite heating network, this system can start instantly in 0.5 seconds and melt 30mm of snow in 60 minutes.
"A traditional diesel snow blower takes four hours to clear the same thickness of snow, but now it can be done in one hour, and the energy consumption is reduced by 30%."
At the same time, the road temperature, humidity, and snow volume sensors will return data to the system every 15 seconds. The system can start road preheating 2 hours in advance and automatically shut down after the snow stops. Staff can remotely check the operating status of the equipment through the mobile app, truly achieving "unattended" operation.
At the beginning of 2025, there were heavy snowfalls in the demonstration section for three consecutive days, and the lowest temperature on the road surface was minus 29 degrees Celsius.On the large monitoring screen, the blue "snow thickness" curve just appeared, and the red "heating power" curve climbed simultaneously. Snow melts as soon as it falls, and the bridge deck always remains above 2 degrees Celsius.
According to reports, the construction cost of the demonstration section is 490,000 yuan, which can save an average of 320,000 yuan in labor, machinery, salt and other costs every year. The investment is expected to be recovered in 2 years; in addition, the road life is extended by 15%, and another 1.03 million yuan can be saved during the entire cycle.
In the future, Jiuma Expressway will fully complete the "self-heating" system upgrade. By then, vehicles departing from Chengdu can use the Jiuma Expressway all-weather and directly reach the junction of Sichuan and Qinghai.
