Abstract
The behavior of frost-susceptible soils is analyzed using finite-element solutions for water flow, heat and solute transport in one dimension. These solutions take into account the discontinuity concept of the Stefan problem for different conditions of ice in soils. The degrees of freedom of this problem are hydraulic head, soil temperature and solute concentration. The proposed MELEF-3v model is mainly based on Miller's theory and considers the presence and formation of ice lenses in saturated, partially saturated, colloidal and noncolloidal soils. The main processes involved during soil freezing, namely dispersion, convection, solute redistribution and overburden, were taken into account in the simulations. Comparisons of predictions with several laboratory experiments are very promising. Frost heave of an actual pavement, exposed to deicing salts, is specially considered in applications.
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