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Premelting dynamics in a continuum model of frost heave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2004

ALAN W. REMPEL ,
J. S. WETTLAUFER  and
M. GRAE WORSTER
ALAN W. REMPEL
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA Present address: Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
J. S. WETTLAUFER
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8120, USA
M. GRAE WORSTER
Affiliation:
Institute of Theoretical Geophysics, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
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Abstract

Frost heave is the process by which the freezing of water-saturated soil causes the deformation and upward thrust of the ground surface. We describe the fundamental interactions between phase change and fluid flow in partially frozen, saturated porous media (soils) that are responsible for frost heave. Water remains only partially frozen in a porous medium at temperatures below $0\,^\circ$C owing both to the depression of the freezing temperature at curved phase boundaries and to interfacial premelting caused by long-range intermolecular forces. We show that while the former contributes to the geometry of fluid pathways, it is solely the latter effect that generates the forces necessary for frost heave. We develop a simple model describing the formation and evolution of the ice lenses (layers of ice devoid of soil particles) that drive heave, based on integral force balances. We determine conditions under which either (i) a single ice lens propagates with no leading frozen fringe, or (ii) a single, propagating ice lens is separated from unfrozen soil by a partially frozen fringe, or (iii) multiple ice lenses form.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 498 , 10 January 2004 , pp. 227 - 244
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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