Analytical solution for the response of lined trapezoidal canals under soil frost action

Abstract

Lined canals are important water suppliers and provide water for irrigation and other activities; however, they accumulate serious frost damage in cold regions. The frost heaving of frozen soil and its normal and tangential interactions with the canal lining are complex, which make it difficult to simplify analytical models; thus, research on analytical solutions for the response of canal lining under soil frost heaving are limited. First, trapezoidal canal frost heave characteristics were analyzed, and a new analytical solution based on the elastic foundation beam model considering tangential contact conditions at the lining–frozen soil interface was proposed. This solution is used to calculate the normal and tangential frost heave forces on the lining. Then, the proposed analytical solution and the traditional solution using an Euler beam on a Winkler foundation were compared with two case histories including field measurements and numerical simulations. The new solution agreed with the case histories and predicted the frost heave and stress of the lining, while the traditional solution neglecting tangential contact predicted only the normal lining frost heave, which was overestimated. Finally, the effects of the tangential and normal foundation coefficients, groundwater depth, canal size and uplift displacement at slope toes on canal frost heaving were investigated by parametric analysis. The proposed analytical solution can help engineers design canals using structural deformation and strength indexes and is applicable to frost heave response analyses of concrete face dams, slab foundations, culverts, and retaining walls.