The Freeze-Thaw Cycle and Its Impact on Masonry

For instance, it does not account for the expansion observed in ordinary concrete during freezing or the behavior of non-expansive liquids when they freeze (Rønning, 2001; Yu et al., 2017). This process subsequently contributes to additional ice volume expansion, ultimately leading to frost heaving at the base of the soil. The expansion of the frozen water (ice lens) within the soil will exert upward pressure from the penetration limit and induce deformation, which in turn lifts the in-situ frozen soil (Figure 4B) (Schreiber, 2014; Wang and Zhou, 2018). The process can continue and cause vulnerability to the infrastructures in the affected area.

• If your gutters are overflowing or downspouts direct water toward concrete surfaces, it can increase the moisture available to freeze inside and under your slabs.
• Understanding and minimizing aggregation can potentially reduce immunogenic responses and make protein therapeutics safer.
• However, after this curing period, the 2% BB-amended CL and SM UCS specimens exhibited new peaks of carbonate minerals, as shown in Fig.

Crack formation and features, mineral dissolution, and other microstructural changes can be detected and further provide insights into the mechanism for the variation in the granite’s macroscopic behavior. Shi et al. (2020) analyze the influence of soil frost heaving on the internal force and displacement of foundation pit supporting structures. Jiang et al. (2023) focused on the frost-heaving characteristics of hydraulic tunnel wall rock in cold regions, emphasizing the spatial distribution and variation of frozen areas and frost-heaving forces. Low temperatures, especially below-freezing points, significantly affect surrounding rock stability in rock engineering projects. Prolonged exposure to negative temperature and freezing conditions alters the deformation and intensity of fractured rocks (Wang and Zhou, 2018).

Low temperature thermal analysis

In high-locality landslides, the failure mechanism typically involves a gradual progression of compression-shear failure in the lower slope and tension-shear coupling failure in the upper slope. While many current slope stability studies simplify the tension-shear coupling strength of rock masses using linear methods, experimental results reveal significant nonlinear strength characteristics under tension-shear stress44,45. Consequently, linear strength theories fail to fully capture the tension-shear failure process in the upper slopes. To better describe slope instability, it is crucial to adopt a joint strength model that incorporates both tension-shear and compression-shear mechanisms46.

Shan et al. (2021) investigated the impact of clay mineral composition on the dynamic properties and structure of artificial marine clay. It was found that marine clays with a high content of montmorillonite showed increased plasticity index (PI) and Atterberg limits. This increase was attributed to the tendency of montmorillonite to more readily adsorb strong and loosely bound water (stern layer) on its surfaces when in a plastic state. Accordingly, understanding the specific mineralogical composition is essential for predicting and managing the behavior of clay in various engineering applications such as soil stabilization and contaminant containment. Several test results suggest that the swelling pressure increases with respect to decreasing initial water content.

Effects of Freezing and Thawing on the Consolidation Settlement of Soils

The classification of soils was determined after performing grain size, liquid limit, and plastic limit tests, which identified the soils as lean clay (CL) and silty sand (SM). The liquid limit and plastic limit for CL soil was 38.15% and 19.5%, respectively, whereas SM soil had a liquid limit of 24.9% and a plastic limit of 15.3%. The specific gravity values for CL and SM soils were 2.78 and 2.75, respectively.

Environmental factors, such as variations in curing conditions and freeze-thaw cycles across different climates, could influence the performance of biochar-amended soils. The freeze-thaw cycles demonstrated a reduction in UCS values, indicating the sensitivity of BAS to environmental fluctuations requirement of mitigation strategies such as optimizing the biochar content and moisture control. The long-term stability of biochar-amended soil under wetting-drying cycles, dynamic loading, and varying environmental conditions is needed to evaluate before field applications. These factors introduce uncertainties, highlighting the need for further investigation to fully understand the stability and effectiveness of biochar-amended soils. Ensuring consistent quality of bentonite clay is critical, but challenging due to natural variations in its composition. Variations in mineral content, particle size and moisture content can affect its swelling characteristics and performance.

Soil temperature changes during the freeze-thaw period and the carry-over effects of freeze-thaw on soil nutrients

The water retention characteristics are influenced by soil structure and porosity. Figure 2a, b shows the pH results of CL and SM soil amended with varying proportions of BB for different curing periods. The results revealed that incorporating BB into both soils led to a noticeable increase in the pH of mixtures.

• The percentage increase in UCS was observed to be 2.69% and 10.51% with the addition of 1% and 2% BB in CL soil, respectively.
• Table 3 provides a comprehensive summary of the freeze-thaw cycle effects on expansion materials, highlighting their factors and implications in geotechnical engineering.
• If the tensile stress exceeds the ultimate tensile strength of the concrete, microcracks begin to generate (Zeng et al., 2010).
• No significant changes in the purity of the mAb-1 has been observed by chromatographic and electrophoretic methods of SE-HPLC, CE-SDS, and peptide mapping over time when stored at the intended long-term storage condition.

Tensile-compressive-shear strength properties of granite after freeze–thaw cycles

Freeze–thaw cycle (FTC) is a critical physical process in soil formation and soil structural change in alpine regions. However, how FTCs affect soil dual-porosity structures (inter-aggregate pores and intra-aggregate pores) is still unclear. The objective of this study was to improve the understanding of the response of soil dual-porosity structures to FTCs. In this study, FTC simulation experiments (0, 1, 3, 5, and 10 cycles) and computed tomography scanning were carried out to explore the effects of FTCs on soil dual-porosity structures at soil aggregate and column scales. The intra-aggregate porosity first decreased and then increased with increasing FTCs, while the inter-aggregate porosity first increased and then decreased in the alpine meadow.

In contrast, the strength of both biochar-amended soils (BAS) decreased with the increase in freeze-thaw cycles, due to the expansion and contraction of ice within the specimen. The porous and hydrophilic nature of biochar (BB) increased the water retention capacity of both soils, with a more significant improvement observed in CL soil compared to SM soil, under both compacted and slurry conditions. Specimen compaction significantly decreased the gravimetric water content at the permanent wilting point in both soils. swimming pools by ProGorki of the granite sample decreases nonlinearly with freeze–thaw cycles, like the uniaxial compressive strength while the decrement in uniaxial tensile strength is rather small.

The intent of this analysis was to determine the minimum temperature necessary for complete solidification during freezing and the product’s thawing characteristics. The Luanshibao Landslide is located in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau, with a landslide volume of about 8.5 × 107 m3, covering an area of 4.25 km2 (Fig. 1)40. Due to the freeze–thaw activity at high altitude, the granite has undergone intense mechanical weathering47. In this study, the fresh intact rock samples were collected at the slip zone site and transported to the State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics for testing.

Variation of GWC with suctions in unconfined and confined conditions

All concentration deviations relative to the concentration after the first freeze/ thaw cycle were less than 5 % for -20 °C and -80 °C cycling with both isolation methods. The average percentage differences of liquid nitrogen samples were higher, and the MagNA isolation method showed significant differences. The repeating freeze/ thaw up to 100 cycles (through -20 °C and -80 °C, respectively) did not significantly influence the integrity, concentration, or purity of genomic DNA, suggesting that storage of samples in high-volume pools without multiple aliquoting is possible. Storage in a freezer seems to be the most suitable way of long-term DNA preservation, because liquid nitrogen storage leads to formation of DNA clumps. Soil temperature is also a key environmental factor influencing plant dormancy and sprouting38, however, it is not the main reason for differences in sprouting between treatments in this study.