Effect of Ground Freezing with Liquid Nitrogen on Freezing Rate and Mechanical Properties of Coastal Clayey Silt
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147, Issue 9
Abstract
The artificial ground freezing (AGF) method is an environmentally friendly ground improvement technique for numerous geotechnical applications. It can be used in fine-grained soils, which may not be efficiently improved via conventional cement-based ground improvement techniques. However, some of the issues hindering the application of the AGF method to fine-grained soils include inefficiency in achieving the target volume of frozen soil and degradation in mechanical properties of the soil after the freezing-thawing process. In this paper, the freezing rate and degradation in strength and stiffness of a clayey silt in South Korea were investigated using field experiments. At two different outlet temperatures ( and ), liquid nitrogen was injected into the freezing pipe to evaluate the freezing rate. A simple equation to estimate the theoretical radial freezing rate was proposed and compared with the experimental results. In addition, a piezocone penetration test (CPTu) and pressuremeter test (PMT) were performed to assess the degradation in strength and stiffness of the soil after the freezing-thawing process. Results of the CPTu, PMT, and laboratory experiments revealed that the degradation in mechanical properties of Korean clayey silt could be attributed to the rearrangement of soil particles.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (2019R1A2C2086647).
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147 • Issue 9 • September 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 27, 2020
Accepted: Apr 19, 2021
Published online: Jul 9, 2021
Published in print: Sep 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Dec 9, 2021
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