Role of heat and water transport in frost heaving of fine-grained porous media under negligible overburden pressure

Abstract

An equation accurately describing the rate of frost heave is derived by using the mixture theory of continuum mechanics. It is shown that the rate of frost heave is determined mainly by the rate of heat removal and the rate of water intake. When the phase equilibrium holds in the system, the relation between the rate of heat removal and the rate of water intake is shown to depend mainly on the phase composition data of a given medium. By studying reported experimental data, it is found that the phase equilibrium may hold until th rate of heat removal reaches a certain critical value. When the rate of heat removal exceeds this critical value, the phase equilibrium may possibly be disrupted for some media.