Freezing of Soil with an Unfrozen Water Content and Variable Thermal Properties

📖 The Scoop

While many materials undergo phase change at a fixed temperature, soil systems exhibit a definite zone of phase change. The variation of unfrozen water with temperature causes a soil system to freeze of thaw over a finite temperature range. Exact and approximate solutions are given for conduction phase change of plane layers of soil with unfrozen water contents that vary linearly and quadratically with temperature. The temperature and phase change depths were found to vary significantly from those predicted for the constant-temperature or Neumann problem. The thermal conductivity and specific heat of the soil within the mushy zone varied as a function of unfrozen water content. It was found that the effect of specific heat is negligible, while the effect of variable thermal conductivity can be accounted for by a proper choice of thermal properties used in the constant-thermal-property solution. Keywords: Frozen soils; Phase change; Soils.

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