Experimental Study on the Influence of Increased Summer Rainfall on the Hydrothermal Process within the Highway Embankments in Permafrost Regions
Publication: Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 38, Issue 2
Abstract
The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau shows an obvious trend of warming and humidification, and the increased rainfall is mainly concentrated in the summer. There have been few reports on the effects of summer rainfall variations on the hydrothermal states of embankments in permafrost regions. Therefore, based on an indoor embankment-scale model experiment, the effects of increased summer rainfall on the surface energy, temperature, and water fields of highway embankments in permafrost regions were investigated. The results showed that increased summer rainfall led to an increase in surface net radiation. However, the increase in summer rainfall led to a decreasing trend in the pavement temperature and shallow heat flux of the embankment, indicating that increased summer rainfall could effectively inhibit the increase in pavement temperature. Simultaneously, the increased summer rainfall also increased the shallow water content at different locations of the embankment in the following order: natural site > shoulder > slope > pavement. The maximum increase in water content at the natural site was 6.7% after a twofold increase in the summer rainfall. In addition, the temperature within the embankment exhibited a decreasing trend with an increase in summer rainfall. Compared to other parts of the embankment, although the increased summer rainfall led to a relatively small increase in water content in the lower part of the pavement, the asphalt concrete pavement had a higher temperature. Therefore, when rainfall acts as an energy cold pulse on the pavement, the temperature of the lower part of the pavement decreases more significantly than that of the other parts of the embankment. The increased summer rainfall affected the cooling range of different parts of the embankment in the following order: pavement > natural site > shoulder > slope. The increase in summer rainfall had a hysteresis effect that affected the water and temperature fields within the embankment in autumn.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and codes generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42261028), the Chinese Academy of Sciences “Light of West China” Program for Western Young Scholars (23JR6KA027), the Longyuan Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Talent (Individual) Project (Mingli Zhang), and the Gansu Provincial Department of Education: Graduate Student “Innovation Star” Project (2023CXZX-454).
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Information
Published In
Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 38 • Issue 2 • June 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 17, 2023
Accepted: Nov 7, 2023
Published online: Apr 5, 2024
Published in print: Jun 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Sep 5, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Climates
- Cold regions engineering
- Embankment (transportation)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Frost
- Highway and road management
- Highway and road structures
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Measurement (by type)
- Meteorology
- Pavements
- Permafrost
- Precipitation
- Rain water
- Rainfall
- Temperature effects
- Temperature measurement
- Transportation engineering
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
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