Review of the Impact of Permafrost Thawing on the Strength of Soils
Date
2024-02-20
Authors
Ahari, Hossein Emami
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American Society of Civil Engineers
Abstract
Global warming is causing unprecedented changes to permafrost regions with amplified effects in the Arctic through a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. This intensified climate warming thaws both the discontinuous and continuous permafrost resulting in changes in the mechanical properties of the soils found in these regions. Since permafrost regions constitute nearly 24% of the Northern Hemisphere, understanding the strength of soils in thawed conditions is essential to analyze the stability of existing structures, and to design safer and more economical infrastructure in these regions. Specifically, thawing of the permafrost is causing considerable reductions in its strength of soils, which may lead to massive landslides, foundation failures, and so forth. Since frozen soil is a multiphase structure that consists of soil particles, unfrozen water, ice, and air, each constituent will influence the mechanical properties. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge of the impact of temperature, volumetric ice content, unfrozen water content, and frozen density on the compressive strength, peak shear strength, residual shear strength, undrained shear strength, and tensile strength of soils. The undrained shear strength of soil is said to have a linear correlation with temperature. In addition, the undrained cohesion of soil was found to depend on the temperature, whereas the undrained friction angle of soil was significantly influenced by volumetric ice content. An increase in the volumetric ice content up to 80% to 90% will cause a reduction in the peak and residual deviatoric stresses. In addition, an increase in volumetric ice content resulted in an increase in the compressive strength of the soil. The tensile and compressive strengths were found to be functions of the unfrozen water content.
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This is a manuscript of the article Published as Ajmera, Beena, and Hossein Emami Ahari. "Review of the Impact of Permafrost Thawing on the Strength of Soils." Journal of Cold Regions Engineering 38, no. 2 (2024): 03124001. doi: https://doi.org/10.1061/JCRGEI.CRENG-727. © 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers. Posted with Permission. This material may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This material may be found at https://ascelibrary.org/doi/full/10.1061/JCRGEI.CRENG-727.