Creep behaviour of undisturbed clay permafrost

Abstract

An in situ analysis of naturally occurring creep has been carried out at the proposed Canadian Arctic Gas pipeline crossing of Great Bear River in the Northwest Territories. This is the last of four papers that describe the study. Creep properties of natural and reconstituted frozen soils are briefly reviewed. A laboratory programme to measure creep properties of undisturbed ice-rich glaciolacustrine clay samples from the Great Bear River site is described in detail. The results are analysed to determine empirical parameters for constitutive equations that describe the stress–strain–time behaviour of the material. Key words: Mackenzie Valley, pipelines, slopes, ice-rich, soils, permafrost, geotechnical, creep, laboratory.