EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON FROZEN SOIL

Abstract

Various studies have been carried out for soils at normal room temperature but the studies on frozen soils are meagre. For every construction, soil investigation is the most important and the primary step for a site selection. For constructions at normal room temperature, there are plenty of experimentation and research data on soil is available. But lack of research data exists for colder regions, where the ambient temperature is below zero degree Celsius for most of the time. It is therefore the need to study soil under frost condition to get a better idea about the behaviour of frozen soils. There are few research available on the mechanical behaviour of frozen soil but no study on the very basic parameters like void ratio, bulk density, porosity, and the degree of freezing. Also, how these parameters change as the soil temperature changes from normal room temperature to negative values. The main emphasis is on the study and experimentation on frozen soil and to formulate different relationships amongst individual soil parameters at various temperatures. The methodology used is to model the soil surface (open grounds in colder regions) by taking sand as the soil after sieving. The model samples are taken into beakers with different bulk densities to replicate real site condition in the freezer. Then by calculating factors like density, porosity, void ratio, etc at different negative temperatures (-5, -10, -15, -20 degree Celsius) and forming relationship with same parameters with that on room temperature. The experimental data obtained is used in “Eureqa software” that will utilize the input so provided and will find mathematical relationship that exist in the soil parameters.