Evaluation and application of a constitutive model for frozen and unfrozen soil
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Abstract
Recently, a constitutive model has been developed describing the mechanical behaviour of frozen soil as a function of temperature, all the way to the unfrozen state, and vice versa (Ghoreishian et al., 2016). The model has been implemented as a user-defined soil model in the geotechnical finite element code PLAXIS 2D and applied in practical thermo-hydro-mechanical boundary value problems. One of the problems with the use of a model for frozen / unfrozen soil is that it involves several parameters of which quite a few are not very common to geotechnical engineers. Hence, one of the goals of our study is to provide more information on the meaning and the determination of the model parameters. As an example of the use of the constitutive model, two hypothetical cases are presented. The first one is a chilled pipeline causing a drop in the ground temperature leading to frost heave. The second one is a raft foundation on frozen ground subjected to a thawing period.