Theoretical analysis of the mechanical response of a lined canal induced by soil frost heave behavior based on improved foundation beam models

Abstract

Lined canals in cold regions often experience severe frost damage, posing a significant threat to the water supply safety. This paper proposes a modified analytical solution for the response of canal lining under soil frost heave, which is based on a Timoshenko beam on a Pasternak foundation considering tangential contact between the lining and frozen soil. This analytical solution can provide any solution using Timoshenko or Euler–Bernoulli beams on Pasternak or Winkler foundations with or without tangential contact. Then, the modified analytical solution, along with the traditional analytical solutions using Euler–Bernoulli beams on Winkle foundations, is compared against both model test and numerical simulation results. The modified analytical solution performs better than the traditional solution. Finally, the effects of foundation model, beam model, and tangential contact in simulating canal frost heave were discussed, and some measures to mitigate canal frost heave are proposed. The results show that solutions based on Winkler foundation overestimate frost heaves and tensile stresses of canal linings, and solutions without considering tangential contact only obtains overestimated frost heave. In addition, solutions based on Euler–Bernoulli beams underestimate frost heaves slightly and overestimate tensile stresses slightly. Therefore, the Pasternak foundation, Euler–Bernoulli beam, and tangential contact model can be used to simulate canal frost heave. The modified analytical solution directly uses field measurements of soil free frost heave to calculate canal frost heave, thereby enhancing result reliability. This analytical solution provides a simple method for canal frost heave design, and can be applied to frost heave analyses of flat and inclined structures.