Toward A Molecular Scale Understanding of Frost Heaving: Phase 1

• Main Author: Cushman, John H.
• Other Authors: PURDUE RESEARCH FOUNDATION LAFAYETTE IN
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1993
• Subjects: Soil Mechanics; Snow; Ice and Permafrost; Thermodynamics; *PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS; *DIFFUSION; *FROST HEAVE; FRACTALS; SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION; COLD REGIONS; SURFACE TENSION; DISPERSIONS; BROWNIAN MOTION; ENTHALPY; MOLECULAR STRUCTURE; SURFACE ANALYSIS; HYDRODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS; CONTINUUM PHYSICS; MSD(MEAN SQUARE DISPLACEMENT); STOCKMAYER FLUID; CHEMICAL POTENTIAL; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA275446; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA275446

A fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical basis for frost heaving is of utmost importance for improving the design of structures for use in cold regions The research reported here represents a multidisciplinary effort to develop a molecular-scale understanding of this cold region phenomena. Propagation of the molecular-scale information to a field scale is also important and the scale-up problem has also been addressed. A multiphase, multicomponent hybrid theory of mixtures approach was used to scale up information. Equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical mechanical tools were developed and employed to examine nonlocal diffusion and dispersion. Phase transition were studied with MC and MD methods. New techniques were developed to compute the chemical potential of the vicinal phase. Interfacial tension was studied using GCEMC. Anomalous diffusion in monolayer films was analyzed via MD, scaling arguments and fractal Brown motion.