Frost Heaving in Artificial Ground Freezing

Artificial ground freezing methods have been applied to geotechnical construction projects for stabilizing earth materials and controlling water seepage into the ground. However, this can result in frost heaving and causes the same engineering problems as encountered with the natural freezing of soil. In natural freezing, the ground freezes from the surface downward. When artificial ground freezing is applied at a deep location, however, freezing is limited locally. The soil condition differs between them as follows: Natural freezing - unsaturated and without overburden pressure. Artificial freezing -- saturated and under overburden pressure. The authors investigated the practical application of artificial ground freezing and examined the frost behaviour of a saturated soil under overburden pressure. This paper presents the results obtained from experiments concerning frost heaving and discusses frost heaving at the freezing site.