The water content of the foundation soil will change dynamically as a result of rainfall, snowfall, and ground surface evaporation, leading to a significant change in frost heave properties of the foundation soil in cold regions. One-dimensional freezing tests of the Qinghai-Tibet silty clay with three different initial water contents in an open system were carried out using CCD image acquisition technology and computed tomography (CT) scanning technology in combination with the traditional soil freeze-thaw test system. The heat conduct process, cryostructure formation, frost heave development, unfrozen zone consolidation, ice segregation, water migration, and redistribution during soil freezing are studied comprehensively. The results show that increasing the sample’s initial water content will lead to the increase of frozen depth, ladder-like cryostructures in vertical sections, more structural polygons in horizontal sections, and also more obvious ice lens segregation, unfrozen zone consolidation, and water migration during the freezing of soil samples.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.