Frost heave prediction of chilled pipelines buried in unfrozen soils

Abstract

Frost heave is an important consideration in the design of buried chilled pipelines. A procedure for calculating the amount of heave under a chilled gas pipeline is presented based on a finite-difference formulation of the heat and mass transfer in saturated soils. The frost heave of the soil is characterized in terms of the segregation potential concept developed in earlier papers by the authors. Good agreement is found between the predictions of heave obtained with this procedure and that observed in long-term full-scale experiments at a test site in Calgary, Canada. Additional calculations are presented to explore the influence of pipeline temperature, pipe insulation, and ground temperature on frost heave of buried pipelines.