Latent Heat of Frozen Saline Coarse‐Grained Soil

Abstract

In recognition of the need to predict the thermal regime in arctic offshore structures, a laboratory research program was constructed to evaluate the latent heat of fusion of a coarse‐grained soil with saline pore water. Latent heat of fusion measurements were made by placing frozen soil specimens with saline pore water in an insulated cylinder and melting the specimens under steady‐state heat flow conditions. The specimen temperature and heat transfer through the cylinder as a function of time was recorded. The latent heat of fusion is equal to the heat supplied to the soil specimen in the time interval during which a phase change occurs. The results from the research program indicate that the latent heat released during thawing depends on the initial values of pore‐water salinity and subfreezing temperature. The latent heat released increases with decreasing pore‐water salinity. For the coarse‐grained soil employed in the research program, the latent heat released when thawing from a given subfreezing temperature was found to be equal to the latent heat released in a pure saline solution over a comparable temperature range.