Field Performance of Salt Brine Applications

Abstract

Transportation agencies have introduced salt brine in winter maintenance practices to alleviate impacts on the environment, human health, vehicles, and infrastructure, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. While salt brine has been implemented for several years, there is a need to evaluate its performance in the field. In this research study, salt brine performance was evaluated with field data collected from 249 storms over three winter seasons across 10 counties in Wisconsin. Field data collection consisted of route features, equipment, winter storm field observations (weather, material, application rates, and performance), and pavement friction. The methodology consisted of comparing study and control routes’ field performance measures under the same weather conditions and period of time. Study routes were treated with salt brine applications (direct application or combination of solids and liquids), and control routes were treated with solid salt applications only. Key findings of this research indicate that, on average, salt brine reduced the amount of salt used by 23.8%, reduced the time to bare/wet by 15.0%, and resulted in 8.1% higher pavement friction when compared with solid salt. The benefit–cost of introducing salt brine applications across all 10 counties was 2.14, for a horizon of 10 years.