Effect of Climatic Warming on Pile Creep in Permafrost

Abstract

Climatic warming trends may induce long‐term warming trends in permafrost ground temperatures at depth. In warmer discontinuous permafrost, the effects of such warming trends on the integrity of foundations on permafrost may be more pronounced. Structures placed on pile foundations in the Arctic have not addressed the potential effects of climatic warming in the past. This paper carries out some one‐dimensional geothermal analyses to determine the effects of climatic warming on the ground temperature profile around a pile foundation, and examines the effects on the long‐term creep response of a loaded pile. An existing geothermal simulator was modified to incorporate the creep calculation at each time step, and predictions for the creep settlement of a pile in a set of typical permafrost conditions have been made. The analysis indicates that permafrost at depth along the pile shaft has considerable thermal inertia, and does not warm significantly for the first 10–15 years of the simulation. Pile creep, after this time, is accelerated to some extent, induced by the effects of pile warming, averaged over the full length of pile.