Experimental Study on the Behavior of Pile and Soil at the Frost Condition

Abstract

The paper including results of model tests and laboratory research of pile works in a condition of the seasonally frozen soil. It is very important during geotechnical design and construction to make a definition for the frost-hazardous properties of soils that could negatively affect to foundations. Frost-susceptibility of soil ground of foundations should be found during experimental, laboratory testing, modelling and so on. This paper present model pile testing on frozen conditions of the silty soil. Kazakhstan territory is located on seasonally freezing-thawing soil ground conditions where an influence of negative temperatures is a very sensitive topic to geotechnical conditions of the region. Geotechnical conditions of soil are very variable and different on the territory of Kazakhstan. There are presented salty soils and loess soils in the West and South Kazakhstan, while silty and clay soils are usually spreading in North and East Kazakhstan. The moisture content of a soil is too much by percentage in the North and East Kazakhstan compared with West and South Kazakhstan geotechnical conditions. The frozen soil depth in East Kazakhstan has maximum 2.5–3.0 m while the minimum frozen soil depth is 0.5 m, in South Kazakhstan. Therefore, investigation and inspection of freezing soil influence to soil ground and foundations ought to be a very important research area among geotechnical professionals in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the frozen soil ground testing and research is very slow and usually not provided during the designing of buildings and structures in Kazakhstan. The main reason for this situation is an absence of researchers, equipped laboratories, special devices and interests from construction companies. Historically Kazakhstan was under the rule of Soviet Union before 1991, so a lot of research institutes and centres located in Russia. After Kazakhstan got independence in 1991 it wasn’t researched and investigated problems of an influence of freezing to soil ground and foundation. Thus, this paper has high importance for investigation and study the problem of frost susceptibility of soil ground.