Frost heave in freezing soils: A quasi-static model for ice lens growth

Abstract

Frost heave can have a very destructive impact on infrastructure in permafrost regions. The complexity of nanoscale ice-mineral interactions and their relation to the macroscale frost heave phenomenon make ice lens growth modelling an interesting but ch allenging task. Taking into account the limiting assumption of the constant segregation temperature in the segregation potential model, we propose here a new quasi-static model for ice lens growth under a time varying temperature based on the water activity criterion. In this model, the conventional pressure potential gradient in Darcy's law is replaced by a water activity based chemical potential gradient for the calculation of water flow velocity, which provides a better prediction of ice lens growth and is useful to describe the ice nucleation and the state of water at a specific temperature. M oreover, based on the analysis of the new developed model, a mathematical description of the segregation potential is provided here. The modified Kozeny-Carman equation is applied to determine the water permeability of a given soil. In our new model, the effects of the equivalent water pressure are taken into account to modify the freezing characteristic function. Hence, the temperature-and equivalent water pressure-dependent hydraulic permeability in the frozen fringe is mathematically determined and improved. By coupling the quasi-static model with the modified hydraulic permeability function, the numerical calculation of ice lens growth is validated based on the experimental data of the temperature of the ice lens measured in the laboratory. The prediction of ice lens growth using the proposed method contributes and facilitates the simplified calculation of frost heave in the field and/or laboratory scenarios at a quasi-static state, and thus enables a better understanding of phase change and fluid flow in partially frozen granular media (soils).

Water Migration and Segregated Ice Formation in Frozen Ground: Current Advances and Future Perspectives

“…Instead, we focus on the processes involved in segregated ice formation, which mostly describes the warmest or first ice lens ice based on the frozen fringe. They can be broadly divided into three types: rigid ice models (ONeill and Miller, 1985;Sheng et al, 1995;Zhou et al, 2018), models based on segregation potential (Gilpin, 1980;Koren et al, 1999;Ji et al, 2019), and pre-melting dynamic models (Wettlaufer et al, 1996;Rempel et al, 2004;Michalowski and Zhu, 2006;Zhou and Wei, 2020). These models differ in practical applications due to different theoretical assumptions and bases.…”

“…Furthermore, the model did not involve the parameters related to basic soil properties (Li et al, 2000). Based on the segregation potential model and the water activity criteria, Ji et al (2019) proposed a quasi-static model for ice lens growth to describe the ice lens growth under slowly changing segregation temperature.…”

“…Frost heave models based on the frozen fringe theory (Miller, 1972) have been used to simulate ice formation (Konrad and Morgenstern, 1980;Sheng et al, 1995;Michalowski and Zhu, 2006;Ji et al, 2019;Zhou and Wei, 2020). These models have detailed descriptions to simulate the ice segregation process in soil freezing.…”

Multi-phase-field microporomechanics model for simulating ice lens growth and thaw in frozen soil

“…Ice lens formation at the microscopic scale is a physical phenomenon critical for understanding the physics of frost heave and thawing settlement occurred at the field scale under the thermal cycles. Since ice lens may affect the freeze-thaw action and cause frost heave and thawing settlement sensitive to the changing climate and environment conditions, knowledge on the mechanism for the ice lens growth is of practical value for many civil engineering applications in cold regions [Palmer and Williams, 2003, Zhang et al, 2016, Li et al, 2017, Lake et al, 2017, Ji et al, 2019. For example, substantial heaving and settlement caused by the sequential formations and thawing of ice lenses lead to uneven deformation of the road which also damages the tires, suspension, and ball joints of vehicles.…”

The Formation Mechanism and Influence Factors of Highway Waterfall Ice: A Preliminary Study

“…Therefore, with regard to waterfall ice which is caused by the flowing out of ground water, these test results are not applicable. In addition, with the development of numerical simulation technology, more and more scholars use numerical simulations to simulate the change of the soil temperature field, pore water migration and frost heave deformation [27,28]. Some significant macroscopic factors that lead to highway frost damage can be shown, but the generation mechanism and key parameters are far away from actual determination during simulations due to the complexity and variability of the internal structure of the soil.…”