Mitigating effects of extreme conditions

Accretions of ice and snow can be problematic for stay cables – not only do they present a danger to those nearby when frozen accumulations fall from the stay cables, but they can also cause ‘ice galloping’ – one of the phenomena which causes cable vibration.

There is now a unique solution – BBR IceShield – which enhances user-safety on stay cable bridges by reducing snow and ice shedding from stay cables, as well as mitigating cable vibration.

This innovative passive solution involves a thin, lightweight layer of a special transparent coating which can be applied to both new and existing stay cables without requiring any structural changes. Naturally, the durability and de-icing performance of this coating have been successfully tested – in fact, BBR IceShield outperformed other de-icing coatings on the market in the latter tests.

On top of durability and de-icing performance, further advantages of BBR IceShield include simple application and maintenance – and, crucially, the dynamic performance (drag coefficient) of the original stay pipes can even be improved because of additional smoothness (thus less friction) provided by the BBR IceShield coating.

All this adds up to a solution which ensures public safety, reduces labor and energy costs and requires no interruption to traffic.