Frost-heaving pressure in geotechnical engineering materials during freezing process

Abstract

Energy and resources including coal, oil, and gas are in demand all over the world. Because these resources near the earth’s surface have been exploited for many years, the extraction depth has increased. As mining shafts in the coal extraction process become deeper, especially in western China, an artificial freezing method is used and is concentrated in the fractured rock mass. The frost-heaving pressure (FHP) is directly related to the degree of damage of the fractured rock mass. This paper is focused on FHP during the freezing process, with emphasis on the frost-heaving phenomenon in engineering materials. A review of the frost phenomenon in the geotechnical engineering literature indicates that: (1) During the soil freezing process, the ice content that is influenced by unfrozen water and the freezing rate are the determining factors of FHP; (2) During the freezing process of rock and other porous media, the resulting cracks should be considered because the FHP may damage the crack structure; (3) The FHP in a joint rock mass is analyzed by the joint deformation in field and experimental tests and can be simulated by the equivalent expansion method including water migration and joint deformation.