Thawing of permafrost soils under the water intake facility (the Taas-Yurekh river, Yakutia, Russia)

Igor Fomenko,Olga Sirotkina,Denis Gorobtsov,Daria Shubina,N Vatin,E Vdovin,P Zunino

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/201914009002

Igor Fomenko, Olga Sirotkina + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/201914009002

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Abstract

Infrastructure development and oil field exploitation are facing great difficulties. This is caused by the engineering geological conditions changing and transformation of the upper part of the section due to the anthropogenic influence. The article contains the results of researching permafrost soils conditions in the bucket-type water intake facility foundation near the Taas-Yurekh River, Yakutia, Russia (the eastern block of Srednebotuobinskoye oil/gas-condensate field). As a result of the research area engineering geological conditions analysis, the geotechnical scheme was constructed, and on the base of it the soils thawing depth mathematical modelling due to the water heating influence was performed. The soils thawing depth calculation due to the heating of the water in the reservoir was performed with the TEMP/W software of GeoStudio, which is based on the finite element method. The forecast for the end of the facility lifetime was based on the temperature measurements in the reservoir and the soil surface. The calculations results show that the maximum thawing depth due to the water heating influence will be 36 meters with the lower border temperature of -1°C, and it decreases to 16 meters with -10°C lower border temperature.

Highlights

Arctic landscapes with hydrological systems and ecosystems present challenges for building of infrastructures
Infrastructure development and oil field exploitation in the permafrost regions which according to [2] covered the 23.9 % of the northern hemisphere territories are concerned with great difficulties due to the engineering geological conditions changing and transformation of the upper part of the section under the anthropogenic influence
The greatest uncertainty in the calculation scheme construction is associated with setting conditions at its lower boundary [26, 27], with the calculation area depth estimation, with the nature of temperature distribution in the permafrost soils, estimated on the basis of paleoclimatic studies and the thermal properties of soils composing the geological section

Summary

Introduction

Arctic landscapes with hydrological systems and ecosystems present challenges for building of infrastructures. The research purpose is the thawing depth calculations under the designed containment pond in the eastern block of Srednebotuobinskoye oil/gascondensate field for 50 years life time. Infrastructure development and oil field exploitation in the permafrost regions which according to [2] covered the 23.9 % of the northern hemisphere territories are concerned with great difficulties due to the engineering geological conditions changing and transformation of the upper part of the section under the anthropogenic influence. The points of heat exchange modelling between permafrost soils and different heat producing engineering systems are reviewed in the [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and etc

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