Abstract
Frost heave action is a major issue in permafrost regions that can give rise to various geotechnical engineering problems. To analyze and predict this phenomenon at a specimen scale, this study conducted a fully coupled thermal-hydro-mechanical analysis and evaluated the frost heave behavior of frozen soil considering geotechnical parameters. Furthermore, a parametric study was performed to quantitatively analyze the effects of major geotechnical properties on frost heave behavior. According to the results of the parametric study, the amount of heave tended to decrease as the particle thermal conductivity increased, whereas the frost heave ratio tended to increase as the initial hydraulic conductivity increased. After evaluating the sensitivity of each parameter to frost heave behavior through statistical analyses, an artificial neural network model was developed to practically predict frost heave behavior. According to the verification results of the neural network model, the trained network model demonstrated a reliable accuracy (R2 = 0.893) in predicting frost heave ratio, even when the model used test datasets that were not part of the training datasets.
Highlights
Hundreds of thousands of people in Alaska, Canada, Russia, and Greenland live on permafrost, a type of soil that covers nearly 24% of the northern hemisphere [1]
The sequence of subsidence events caused by the frost heave and thawing cycle is depicted in Figure 2, which shows a homogeneous fine-grained soil column subjected to one-sided natural freezing from top-down
The analysis was conducted until thermal equilibrium was achieved while maintaining constant bottom and top boundary temperatures (Top boundary temperature was set as 5 ◦ C and bottom boundary temperature was set as −5 ◦ C and the temperature gradient was 1 ◦ C/cm)
Summary
Hundreds of thousands of people in Alaska, Canada, Russia, and Greenland live on permafrost, a type of soil that covers nearly 24% of the northern hemisphere [1]. Frost heave and thawing actions are key issues in permafrost regions that can cause various engineering problems, such as the progressive lifting of sewer pipelines, subsidence of buildings, cracking of road surfaces, and damage to ground infrastructure structures or geological repository systems (Figure 1). We have seen that natural freezethaw cycles from season to season can cause significant subsidence problems for buildings or underground structures, even in non-permafrost areas. The sequence of subsidence events caused by the frost heave and thawing cycle is depicted, which shows a homogeneous fine-grained soil column subjected to one-sided natural freezing from top-down. To analyze and predict this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand the complex thermal-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling that occurs during the freezing process. The preconditions for frost heave action in frozen soil are as follows [2,3]:
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