JP3442114B2 - Road heating control device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a road heating control device for heating and controlling a road surface in order to prevent snow accumulation and freezing in cold regions.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In cold regions, road managers have important tasks such as road surface freeze prevention and snow removal as part of traffic safety measures. Road heating is carried out for this purpose and is installed on roads and parking lots. When such load heating is performed, a heater is embedded in the road surface and power is supplied from the power supply. However, if power is to be supplied to all the heaters buried in a large parking lot, for example, a very large power supply is required. Generally, when making a contract with an electric power company, a basic charge is set based on the maximum electric power used. Therefore, it is preferable to keep the electric power supplied to the load heating device low at one time. For this reason, conventionally, a method has been adopted in which the place where the load heating is to be performed is divided into a plurality of sections and alternate electric power is supplied under appropriate conditions.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a load heating control. As shown in this figure, for example, a heater 1 is embedded for load heating control of one section. A temperature sensor 2 is embedded adjacent to the heater 1 to detect the temperature of this section. The control unit 3 receives the output of the temperature sensor 2, recognizes the temperature of the road surface, and controls the heater 1 to supply electric power required for snow melting. The control unit 3 includes a microprocessor and a predetermined power supply circuit for this purpose.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a heater embedded state in a portion in which the temperature sensor 2 as described above is embedded. For example, when the section for road heating is paved with asphalt, as shown in this figure, the temperature sensor 2 is buried under the asphalt 11, and the soil layer of an appropriate thickness is formed under the temperature sensor 2. Is provided, and the heater 1 is embedded below the heater. The heater 1 includes a resistance wire 14 and an insulating coating 15. Further, the temperature sensor 2 has a heat sensitive portion 21 arranged at its tip portion, and a lead wire 23 is electrically connected inside the case 22. The case 22 is fixed to the substrate 25 by the band 24.

With the above structure, the temperature sensor 2 detects the temperature of the road surface, and if the road surface temperature is low, the heater 1
In order to prevent freezing or to melt snow, a certain amount of power is controlled to be supplied.

[0006]

The conventional load heating control device as described above has the following problems to be solved. When the above control is performed, if snow falls on the road surface or moisture exists on the road surface, it is necessary to control the temperature of the road surface to a freezing temperature or higher so as to prevent the freezing. This control is performed in accordance with the deviation between the temperature detected by the temperature sensor 2 and the control target temperature, for example, a temperature of 1 ° C to 2 ° C.

Therefore, if the detection of the road surface temperature is inaccurate, it is necessary to unnecessarily supply power to the heater without fear of freezing, or to supply predetermined power to prevent freezing. A situation may occur in which power is not supplied to the heater even though it is necessary. However, the mounting conditions such as the burying depth of the temperature sensor 2 vary widely depending on the site environment, and uniform control does not solve this problem. Of course, it is also preferable to perform heating control in consideration of parameters other than the road surface temperature.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides a load heating control device capable of accurately measuring a road surface temperature and faithfully reflecting the measured temperature on the control of electric power supply to a heater. The purpose is.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a road surface temperature sensor embedded under a road surface for detecting a road surface temperature, an outside air temperature sensor for detecting an outside air temperature, and the presence or absence of snowfall are detected. A snow load sensor, a road surface moisture sensor for detecting whether or not the road surface is wet, a power supply for supplying electric power to a heater buried under the road surface, and a control unit for controlling the power supply. In the operating control device, the control unit determines one of the operation modes corresponding to the environmental conditions based on the detection signals of the snowfall sensor and the road surface moisture sensor, and the outside air temperature sensor indicates the determined operation mode. Determine the control temperature to be applied to the road surface in accordance with the outside air temperature, correct the road surface temperature detected by the road surface temperature sensor according to the buried depth of the road surface temperature sensor, and correct the road surface. Degrees be energized to the heater by controlling the power to match the control temperature, characterized by.

Another aspect of the present invention is a road surface temperature sensor which is buried under the road surface to detect the road surface temperature, an outside air temperature sensor to detect the outside air temperature, and a snowfall sensor to detect the presence or absence of snowfall. In a load heating control device including a road surface moisture sensor for detecting the presence or absence of wetness of the road surface, a power supply for supplying electric power to a heater embedded under the road surface, and a control unit for controlling the power supply. Therefore, the control unit determines one of the operation modes corresponding to the environmental conditions based on the detection signals of the snowfall sensor and the road surface moisture sensor, and corresponds to the outside air temperature indicated by the outside air temperature sensor for the determined operation mode. To determine the control temperature to be applied to the road surface, and to determine the correction temperature that indicates the difference between the temperature detected by the road surface temperature sensor and the temperature on the road surface according to the buried depth of the road surface temperature sensor. Rukoto, thereby energizing the heater by controlling the power until the temperature detected by the correction temperature road surface temperature sensor to the addition control temperature obtained by adding to the control temperature is coincident, and wherein.

[0011]

[0012]

This device takes in the buried depth of the road surface temperature sensor as a condition in advance, and when the road surface temperature is detected by this road surface temperature sensor, the road surface temperature is determined according to the buried depth.
There line correction of, or obtain a correction temperature corresponding to the buried depth
It And the control temperature corresponding to the outside air for each operation mode
Judge the control temperature and the corrected road surface temperature or the corrected temperature.
Control the energization to the heater in combination.

[0013]

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the main part of the device of the present invention. The device of the present invention operates based on the principle shown in this figure. Before explaining this operation, the overall configuration of a concrete embodiment of the device of the present invention will be described first.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the load heating controller of the present invention. In the figure,
For example, the parking lot that is the target of road heating is divided into four sections such as section A, section B, section C, and section D as shown in this figure. Then, heaters 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D are embedded in these sections, respectively, to heat the road surface. Furthermore, in order to measure the road surface temperature of each section, the temperature sensor 2A,
2B, 2C and 2D are embedded. The outputs of these temperature sensors are input to the control unit 3, and the control unit 3 controls the power supply to the heaters 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D according to the detected temperature.

A power source 4, a temperature setting unit 7, a snowfall sensor 5 and a road surface moisture sensor 6 are connected to the control unit 3. The snowfall sensor 5 is a detection device for detecting whether or not it is snowing in this area. This device is a sensor that operates based on the well-known principle such as resistance measurement between electrodes to which moisture has adhered. The road surface moisture sensor 6 also has a similar configuration and is well known in the art, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted. The road surface moisture sensor 6 determines whether or not the road surface in the target area is wet. The control unit 3 is composed of a processor (not shown) and a microcomputer including input / output ports. The temperature setting unit 7 is for setting how many times the temperature of the road surface is controlled based on the ambient temperature and other external environments, and stores parameters automatically set according to environmental conditions, A staff member operates switches and dials to set the. Power supply 4
Is a device for supplying electric power for driving the heaters 1A to 1D,
It is composed of a power transformer.

Returning to FIG. 1, the structure and operation of the main part of the apparatus of the present invention will be described. As shown in the upper left portion of FIG. 1, the temperature sensor 2 is embedded at a depth of L millimeters from the ground surface 10. Further, the heater 1 is embedded below it. The control unit 30 and the power source 4 for receiving the detection output of the temperature sensor 2 and controlling the electric power supplied to the heater 1
Is provided. In addition, an environmental condition detection unit 20 is provided to detect environmental conditions other than the road surface temperature, and the heater 1
When the temperature of the road surface is controlled to the set temperature by, a temperature setting unit 7 for storing the temperature is provided.

The output of the temperature sensor 2 is input to the temperature detector 31 of the controller 30. Further, the output of the temperature detection unit 31 and the output of the environmental condition detection unit 20 are input to the set temperature calculation unit 32. The calculation result of the set temperature calculation unit 32 is input to and held in the temperature setting unit 7. The set temperature held in the temperature setting unit 7 is read by the power supply calculation unit 34 and is configured to control the switching circuit 33. The switching circuit 33 is configured to receive electric power from the power supply 4 and appropriately control the switching of the electric power to supply electric power to the heater 1 so as to control the road surface at a set temperature.

Here, when the temperature sensor 2 is buried at a depth of L millimeters from the ground surface 10, for example, the ground surface 1
Even if 0 reaches the freezing temperature, the embedded portion of the temperature sensor 2 still does not reach the freezing temperature. For example, in the case of asphalt pavement or the like, the temperature sensor 2 is buried below the ground surface 10 by, for example, about 30 mm. Further, the heater 1 is embedded further below it by about 30 mm. At this time, a correction process is performed so as to cancel the error between the temperature detected by the temperature sensor 2 and the actual temperature of the ground surface 10.

That is, in the first invention, the set temperature calculation unit 32
The correction temperature is added to the set temperature obtained in step S3 and output to the temperature setting unit. In the second invention, the correction temperature is subtracted from the temperature detected by the temperature sensor, and the temperature is output to the set temperature calculation unit.

In the embodiment of FIG. 1, the correction temperature is 0 ° C. when the burial depth is 30 mm, and the correction temperature is 5 ° C. when the burial depth is 90 mm. That is, when the burial depth is L millimeters, temperature correction of (L-30) / 12 ° C is performed. As a result, the set temperature calculation unit 32
Can perform temperature setting suitable for the temperature of the ground surface. The ambient temperature and other parameters are input from the environmental condition detection unit 20, and the set temperature is determined in consideration of these.

The calculation of the set temperature is specifically performed as follows. Hereinafter, the overall configuration of the device of the present invention will be described more specifically. FIG. 5 shows a basic operation state diagram of the control of the apparatus as described above. The device as described above has three kinds of operating states as shown in this figure. First, the state M1 is the selection of the operation mode. That is, it is a state in which the operating mode to be adopted is determined in consideration of the outside temperature and other situations.

Next, the state M2 is the setting of the control temperature.
That is, here, processing is performed in which an appropriate set control temperature is determined by the snowfall sensor or the road surface moisture sensor and set in the temperature setting unit shown in FIG. The state M3 is a state in which the control output is selected. Here, the power allocation and the like as shown in FIG. 1 are determined. The apparatus of the above-described embodiment is operated while repeating such an operating state at an appropriate cycle.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart for selecting the operation mode. This flowchart concretely shows the operation of selecting the operation mode shown in FIG. First, the control unit 3 shown in FIG. 4 measures the air temperature with a thermometer (not shown). In step S1 of FIG. 6, the temperature is 5 ° C.
Judge whether it is above or below 5 ° C. If it is 5 ° C. or higher, the process proceeds to step S2, and the operation of load heating is stopped. This is because there is no possibility of freezing or other reasons. Meanwhile, 5
If the temperature is equal to or lower than 0 ° C, the process proceeds to step S3, and it is determined whether or not there is snow.

If it is not snowing, step S4
Then, it is judged whether or not there is water on the road surface. If the road surface is not wet, the process proceeds to step S5 and preheating operation is performed. This heats the road surface with each heater with relatively small power,
This is an operation to hold the road surface so that it does not get too cold. When it is determined in step S4 that there is water on the road surface, the process proceeds to step S6, and freeze prevention operation is performed.
That is, electric power is supplied to each heater such that water on the road surface does not freeze. When it is determined in step S3 that it is snowing, the process proceeds to step S7, and it is determined whether or not there is water on the road surface.

If there is no water on the road surface, the snow melting operation in the first mode is performed in step S8. That is, the operation state is such that the falling snow is not frozen on the road surface.
On the other hand, when it is determined in step S7 that there is road surface moisture, the process proceeds to step S9, and the second mode snow melting operation is performed. Here, driving is performed to prevent freezing of the road surface and to prevent snow accumulation. In the first-mode snow melting operation in step S8 and the second-mode snow melting operation in step S9, the required supply power is calculated and set based on empirically obtained data.

FIG. 7 shows a graph of the road surface control temperature in each operation mode. The vertical axis of the figure is the control temperature, and the horizontal axis is the temperature. That is, this graph shows the set temperature in each operation mode shown in FIG. The control unit 3 shown in FIG. 4 selects an operation mode according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 6, and further sets the control temperature under the conditions shown in this figure according to the temperature at that time. For example, in the case of preheating operation, the control temperature is set to be slightly lower if the temperature is high, and is set to, for example, 1 ° C. if the temperature is high. In the anti-freezing operation, if the temperature falls below zero, the control temperature will be 3 ℃.
To about 5 ° C and heat the road surface strongly. In the snow melting operation of the first mode and the snow melting operation of the second mode, the set temperatures are different by about 1 ° C. to enhance the snow melting ability of the second mode.

FIG. 8 is a graph showing the electric power supplied to the heater according to the difference between the temperature detected by the temperature sensor and the set temperature when the temperature sensor accurately detects the temperature of the ground surface. As shown in the figure, when the difference between the temperature detected by the temperature sensor and the set temperature is 2 ° C. or more, 100% power is supplied to the heater. In addition, here, for example, when 120 seconds is set as one unit, it is 10
0%, 50% when power is supplied for 60 seconds out of 120 seconds. When the temperature difference is 1 ° C., 50% electric power is supplied, and when the temperature difference is 0 ° C. or less, no electric power is supplied. In the present invention, either the detected temperature of the temperature sensor or the set temperature in this case is corrected by the above procedure, and then the electric power supplied to the heater is determined with reference to this graph.

As described above, the environmental conditions, that is, the presence / absence of snowfall, the presence / absence of moisture on the road surface, the air temperature and the road surface temperature, etc. are detected,
If the electric power to be supplied to the heater is calculated, snow melting can be controlled by more appropriate electric power supply. Moreover, by optimizing the set temperature as described above, unnecessary heating can be prevented, and electric power for snow melting can be surely supplied when necessary.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments. In the above-described embodiment, the example in which the heaters and the temperature sensors that individually supply electric power to the plurality of sections are provided to perform the snow melting control has been described, but the snow melting control can be carried out even in only one section. is there. In addition, the embedded position of the temperature sensor and the configuration and shape of the temperature sensor itself are not particularly limited and may be freely selected.

[0030]

Road heating control device of the present invention described above, according to the present invention is embedded a heater under the road surface, simultaneously buried road surface temperature <br/> degree sensor, each operation mode based on the weather conditions
With determining the control temperature, the control temperature or the road surface temperature detected by subjected to a correction according to the buried depth of the temperature sensor, it is possible to control the heater without supplying wasted power.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of main parts of an apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a load heating controller.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a heater embedded state.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a load heating controller.

FIG. 5 is a basic operation state diagram of control.

FIG. 6 is an operation mode selection flowchart.

FIG. 7 is a graph showing a road surface control temperature in each operation mode.

FIG. 8 is a graph showing the electric power supplied to the heater according to the difference between the temperature detected by the temperature sensor and the set temperature.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 heater 2 Temperature sensor 10 ground surface 30 control unit

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Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A road surface temperature sensor that is buried under a road surface to detect the road surface temperature, an outside air temperature sensor to detect the outside air temperature, a snowfall sensor to detect the presence or absence of snowfall, and the road surface. A road heating sensor for detecting the presence or absence of wetness of the road, a power supply for supplying electric power to the heater embedded under the road, and a control unit for controlling the power supply. Then, the control unit determines one of the operation modes corresponding to environmental conditions based on the detection signals of the snowfall sensor and the road surface moisture sensor, and the outside air temperature sensor of the determined operation mode is determined. Determining the control temperature to be applied to the road surface corresponding to the outside air temperature shown, and correcting the road surface temperature detected by the road surface temperature sensor according to the burial depth of the road surface temperature sensor. A load heating control device comprising: controlling the power supply to energize the heater until the corrected road surface temperature matches the control temperature. 2. A road surface temperature sensor embedded under the road surface for detecting the road surface temperature, an outside air temperature sensor for detecting the outside air temperature, a snowfall sensor for detecting the presence or absence of snowfall, and the road surface. A road heating sensor for detecting the presence or absence of wetness of the road, a power supply for supplying electric power to the heater embedded under the road, and a control unit for controlling the power supply. Then, the control unit determines one of the operation modes corresponding to environmental conditions based on the detection signals of the snowfall sensor and the road surface moisture sensor, and the outside air temperature sensor of the determined operation mode is determined. Determining the control temperature to be applied to the road surface corresponding to the outside air temperature shown, the temperature detected by the road surface temperature sensor according to the burial depth of the road surface temperature sensor and the above-mentioned road surface Determining a correction temperature indicating a difference from the temperature of the road temperature sensor, and controlling the power supply until the temperature detected by the road surface temperature sensor matches the added control temperature obtained by adding the correction temperature to the control temperature. A load heating control device characterized by energizing a heater.