Experimental study on thermal properties of frozen soils

https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-232X(83)90008-3Get rights and content

Abstract

A series of measurements of the effective thermal conductivity, specific heat and unfrozen-water content of various soils exposed to a cold environment have been carried out by a transient probe method and a calorimetric technique. The present experiments were performed at a very slow rate of cooling of the moist-soil and using four kinds of soil samples from fine to coarse grain-size. It was established that the amount of unfrozen-water in the frozen soil was dependent on the initial moisture content, the grain-size of the soil and the temperature (below 0°C). Measured values of the effective thermal conductivity and specific heat show a strong dependence on temperature, initial moisture content and grain-size of soil in the temperature range T = 0°C to −10°C. The anomalous behavior of a decrease in the effective thermal conductivity of frozen soil for the finest grain-size with decreasing temperature (below 0°C) was observed for a large initial moisture content w = 30–40%.

References (12)

  • D.M. Anderson et al.

    Predicting unfrozen water contents in frozen soils from surface area measurements

    Highway Research Record

    (1972)
  • S.P. Clark
  • D.S. Dillard et al.

    Low temperature thermal conductivity of solidification H2) and D2O

    Pure Appl. Cryog.

    (1966)
  • H.B. Dillon et al.

    Predicting unfrozen water contents in frozen soils

    Can. Geotech. J.

    (1966)
  • D.R. Flynn et al.

    High temperature thermal conductivity of soils

  • M.S. Kersten

    Thermal properties of frozen ground

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text