Geomechanics and Engineering

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Assessment of the effect of fines content on frost susceptibility via simple frost heave testing and SP determination

  • Jin, Hyunwoo (Department of Future and Smart Construction Research, KICT) ;
  • Ryu, Byung Hyun (Department of Future and Smart Construction Research, KICT) ;
  • Lee, Jangguen (Department of Future and Smart Construction Research, KICT)
  • Received : 2022.01.06
  • Accepted : 2022.08.01
  • Published : 2022.08.25
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Abstract

The Segregation Potential (SP) is one of the most widely used predictors of frost heave in cold regions. Laboratory step-freezing tests determining a representative SP at the onset of the formation of the last ice lens (near the thermal steady state condition) can predict susceptibility to frost heave. Previous work has proposed empirical semi-log fitting for determination of the representative SP and applied it to several fine-grained soils, but considering only frost-susceptible soils. The presence of fines in coarse-grained soil affects frost susceptibility. Therefore, it is required to evaluate the applicability of the empirical semi-log fitting for both frost-susceptible and non-frost-susceptible soils with fines content. This paper reports laboratory frost heave tests for fines contents of 5%-70%. The frost susceptibility of soil mixtures composed of sand and silt was classified by the representative SP, and the suitability of the empirical semi-log fitting method was assessed. Combining semi-log fitting with simple laboratory frost heave testing using a temperature-controllable cell is shown to be suitable for both frost-susceptible and non-frost-susceptible soils. In addition, initially non-frost-susceptible soil became frost susceptible at a 10%-20% weight fraction of fines. This threshold fines content matched well with transitions in the engineering characteristics of both the unfrozen and frozen soil mixtures.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

Research for this paper was carried out under the KICT Research Program (project no. 20220124, Development of Environmental Simulator and Advanced Construction Technologies over TRL6 in Extreme Conditions) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

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