Stresses in Ground‐Freezing Problems with Infinite Boundaries

Abstract

The technique of solidifying wet and poorly consolidated ground is an important but highly expensive operation in the construction industry. For the technique to be effective in terms of a project's final cost a preliminary thermal design, based on an approximate solution of temperature distributions in the ground and the subsequent stress‐strain effects, has to be conducted. One such solution is obtained numerically by the use of the finite element method. This method is used to solve nonlinear heat conduction with phase‐change and thermal‐stress problems in two and three dimensions. The distribution of temperature and stress in a freezing ground body are presented for the aforementioned cases from the onset of freezing. Furthermore, one of the main features of this paper is the use of infinite elements to represent the infinite boundaries of such problems.