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Study on frost deformation of rock and calculation method of frost heaving rate of tunnel surrounding rock in cold regions

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Abstract

The highway and railroad tunnel engineering are susceptible to frost damage in cold regions, such as ice accumulation in tunnels and lining cracking phenomena, which seriously affect the safety of the engineering. Among them, the lining freezing damage to the tunnel structure is more harmful, the reason for this phenomenon is that in the early tunnel design did not consider the frost heaving force of surrounding rock on the tunnel lining. At low temperatures the water freezes and turns into ice causes frost heaving deformation of the surrounding rock, which in turn produces frost heaving force on the lining, so the investigation of freezing force is based on the frost heaving deformation of the rock. The frost heaving deformation of rocks is greatly affected by the porosity and mechanical properties of rocks. Firstly, the low-temperature frost heaving deformation test and uniaxial compression test of different types of rock specimens were carried out to study the effects of porosity and elastic modulus on the freezing deformation of rocks. And then, based on the test results, the proposed calculation method of rock frost heave ratio considering the strength is proposed and compared with other calculation methods. Finally, combined with actual engineering examples, the proposed frost heave ratio calculation method and freeze-thaw circle freezing expansion force calculation model are used to analyze the influence of rock elastic modulus and porosity on the freezing expansion force of surrounding rock. The conclusions of the study can provide experimental and theoretical basis for the design of tunnel engineering in cold regions.

Highlights

  • A new method for calculating frost heaving ratio considering rock strength is proposed

  • Frost heaving deformation tests and uniaxial compression tests were conducted

  • The method for calculating rock frost heaving ratio was fitted based on experimental results and compared with earlier methods

  • The calculation method of frost heaving ratio was verified by practical engineering cases of tunnels and the influencing factors were analyze

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No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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Funding

This research is funded with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52178113). Scientific and technological research project of Heilongjiang provincial science and Technology Department (No. HJK2023B021-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, PR China

    Wenliang Qiu, Fengqi Shen, Jingyu Zhou & Mingming Xing

  2. Heilongjiang Provincial Transportation Planning and Design Institute Group Co., Ltd., Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, PR China

    Lin Qi & Mingming Xing

Authors
  1. Wenliang Qiu
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  2. Fengqi Shen
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  3. Jingyu Zhou
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  4. Lin Qi
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Contributions

S.F. and Q.W. wrote the main manuscript text and Z.J. prepared test data. Q.L. and X.M. helped to carry out the experimental process. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fengqi Shen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Communicated by: Hassan Babaie

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Qiu, W., Shen, F., Zhou, J. et al. Study on frost deformation of rock and calculation method of frost heaving rate of tunnel surrounding rock in cold regions. Earth Sci Inform 18, 175 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-024-01668-x

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