Effects of cyclic freezing and thawing on volume changes and permeabilities of soft fine-gained soils

Abstract

Soft, fine-grained soils were exposed to cyclic one-dimensional, open-system freezing and thawing, resulting in maximum volume changes of up to 30%, depending on the initial moisture content and plasticity of the clay as well as on the rate of freezing. A linear relationship between the net volume changes subsequent to freezing and thawing and the liquidity index prior to freezing and thawing was obtained. This correlation is not unique, but depends on rate and mode of freezing. Thus, settlements from freeze–thaw consolidation in the field can be predicted from such tests if the rate and mode of freezing are the same as in the field. During cyclic freezing and thawing the soils became fissured and jointed, resulting for most clays in large increases in their bulk permeabilities, which increased with an increasing number of freeze–thaw cycles, often by more than two orders of magnitude. For some materials, however, little change in permeability occured. Key words: cyclic freeze–thaw, clays, freeze–thaw consolidation, permeability, volume changes.

Soil freezing–thawing characteristics and snowmelt infiltration in Cryalfs of Alberta, Canada

“…The factors affecting snowmelt infiltration include: (1) soil and air temperature regimes (Iwata et al, 2008(Iwata et al, , 2010(Iwata et al, , 2011 (2) soil hydraulic, thermal and physical properties (Kane, 1980;Hayashi et al, 2003); (3) soil water content at the onset of freezing (Kane andStein, 1983a,b, 1984;Granger et al, 1984;Stadler et al, 2000;Gray et al, 2001;Watanabe et al, 2013); (4) soil depth (Christensen et al, 2013); (5) freeze-thaw cycles ; (6) characteristics of the overlying snowpack and its melt rate (Shanley and Chalmers, 1999;Decker et al, 2003;Iwata et al, 2010); (7) the thermal regime of the infiltrating water and soil ; and (8) meteorological conditions (e.g., wind speed, precipitation, radiation and albedo) and their interactions (Granger et al, 1984;Eigenbrod, 1996;Stahli, 2005). Many lab simulations or manipulated field studies have been conducted in the past to find out the dominant factor(s) that influence soil freeze-thaw processes and snowmelt infiltration; this work has greatly advanced our understanding of frozen soil dynamics.…”

Infiltration from the Pedon to Global Grid Scales: An Overview and Outlook for Land Surface Modeling

“…Even though some LSMs account for the direct impact of freezing on K s , temporal changes in the hydraulic parameters due to structural changes induced by FTCs have not been implemented yet. This might be problematic for regions where FTCs might become more frequent under future climate change, as stated by Eigenbrod (1996).…”

Stability of Soil Slope with Cracks

“…On the other hand, cracks keep open for non-or low-plastic soils (Eigenbrod, 1996;Rayhani et al, 2008). In stage 3, water content decreases slowly and the cracks tend to be steady.…”