parameter N determines the stability of the secondary frost heave process. Secondary Frost Heave in Freezing Soils

• Main Author: Christopher Noon
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.625.4773; http://eprints.maths.ox.ac.uk/27/1/noon.pdf

Frost heave describes the phenomenon whereby soil freezing causes upwards sur-face motion due to the action of capillary suction imbibing water from the unfrozen region below. The expansion of water on freezing is a small part of the overall surface heave and it is the ow of water towards the freezing front which is largely responsible for the uplift. In this thesis, we analyse a model of frost heave due to Miller (1972, 1978) which is referred to as secondary frost heave. Secondary frost heave is characterised by the existence of a partially frozen zone, underlying the frozen soil, in which ice and water coexist in the pore space. In the rst part of the thesis we follow earlier work of Fowler, Krantz and Noon where we show that the Miller model for incompressible soils can be dramatically simplied. The second part of the thesis then uses this simplication procedure to develop simplied models for saline and compressible soils. In the latter case, the development of the theory leads to the consideration of non-equilibrium soil consolidation theory and the formation of segregated massive ice within permafrost.