Effect of freezing and thawing on soil permeability: newly equipment and experimental results

Abstract

In a cold climate design of dams, clay barrier liners on landfills, and structures on frost-susceptible soils is a challenge for geotechnical engineers. During service life of the structures a frost heave may reach 15-20% of the depth of a frost penetration and an uplift movement are accompanied by the formation of layered or lattice cryogenic texture. When thawing, macro- and micropores are formed instead of ice lenses. Basically pores are oriented predominantly along frost front. They are a reason of horizontal water permeability increase, consequently, reduce of stability of the slopes and decrease of the effectiveness of the landfill clay barrier liners. The paper presents a new apparatus for studying water permeability and frost heave of soils which allows to carry out horizontal or/and vertical permeability tests (along and across layered cryogenic texture) after assigned number of freeze-thaw cycles without withdrawal of a soil sample from apparatus. The results for clay and fine sand samples are obtained. Clay and fine sand samples showed an increase of horizontal hydraulic conductivity after 2 - 4 freeze-thaw cycles. Relationship between water flow velocity and hydraulic gradient for non-Darcian and Darcian flow is obtained as a result of vertical permeability tests of clay samples in unfrozen state.