Progressive Lifting of Shallow Sewers Due to Frost Heave Actions: Investigation of a Lumped Parameter Frost Heave Model

The objective of this report is to complete work undertaken at the University Minnesota in the mid 1990s. This work was directed at developing an understanding of frost heaves in relationship to the lifting of buried objects such as shallow sewers. The critical findings in the field investigation were detailed in a 1995 final report by Ray Sterling, Progressive Lifting of Shallow Sewers: Field Investigation. Preliminary details of the modeling work were provided in an interim project report and complete details were provided in the MS Thesis of Lingjun Hou, An Investigation of a Lumped Parameter Frost Heave Model, published by the University of Minnesota in January 1994. The objective of the current report is to outline the critical findings in the modeling work detailed in the previous interim report and Hou's thesis. This document should be seen as a complement to the original final report submitted by Sterling in 1995. The central objective of the modeling study is the investigation of the lumped parameter frost heave model developed by Blanchard and Fremond. The work in this report shows that a lumped porosity model can generate an accurate comparison with experiments and is a feasible tool for the investigation of the effect of freeze thaw on buried infrastructure.