New Technique for Monitoring Soil Freezing Will Make Building on Permafrost Safer

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from ​​​​JSC Research Center of Construction have demonstrated the practical utility of their previously patented method for determining at what temperature soil freezes and how much unfrozen water it contains. Monitoring these two parameters is crucial for building and maintaining roads, bridges, houses, factories, etc. in the permafrost region — particularly in the era of global warming, which causes soil thawing and instability. The technique is precise, fast, relatively inexpensive, and applicable to different types of soils. The paper detailing the tests of this so-called water potential method came out in the journal Cold Regions Science and Technology.

“Whenever you build something on permafrost in the Arctic region, you have to know at what temperature that particular soil freezes and what the residual content of liquid water in it is. These parameters affect the soil’s mechanical properties and are essential for calculations that ensure the stability of housing, transport infrastructure, and industrial facilities such as factories, pipelines, and oil wells,” commented the first author of the study, Leading Research Scientist Evgeny Chuvilin from Skoltech. “This is even more relevant for structures that give off heat, such as thermal power stations, and in the context of global warming as the environments populated by frozen soils are heating up.”

The necessary measurements can be made using nuclear magnetic resonance or the contact method, but the former is so expensive only major research centers can afford it, and the latter is time-consuming and not exactly cheap either, as it requires large soil samples, which have to be frozen with costly refrigeration equipment.

Read more at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech)

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