Freeze–thaw properties and long-term thermal stability of the unprotected tower foundation soils in permafrost regions along the Qinghai–Tibet Power Transmission Line

Abstract Many of the unprotected tower footings along the Qinghai–Tibet Power Transmission Line (QTPTL) were buried by open excavation in thaw-unstable permafrost. Their thermal stability was of concern due to climate warming and human-induced thermal disturbances. On the basis of ground temperature measurements during the last three years, the tower foundation soils were stable during the studied period from 2011 to 2013 in spite of appreciable impacts of engineering construction of tower footings on the thermal regimes of the surrounding and underlying permafrost. The thaw front near a typical concrete footing was 0.67 m to 1.74 m deeper than that at adjacent natural, undisturbed sites in summer, and ground temperatures near such footings were lower than those at nearby natural sites in winter. This thermal enhancement (TE) effect of concrete footings lengthened the duration of freezing and thawing of the surrounding soils, deepened the permafrost table near the tower foundations, and subsequently adversely affected the thermal stability of the tower foundation soils. Numerical modeling was used for simulating the long-term thermal stability of the foundations soils and impacts of the TE effect, ice contents, mean annual ground temperature (MAGT), embedding depths of tower footings, and climate warming on ground thermal regime. Under the scenario of climate warming by 2.6 °C within the next 50 years, the active layer thickens and permafrost temperatures at depths rise progressively with time. The ice contents and MAGT of permafrost remarkably would affect the degradation rate of permafrost around the footings. The TE effect of the footings thickened the active layer by at least 1 m relative to natural sites 20-m away from the footings. The thaw settlement of tower foundation soils could present higher risk for the unprotected footings with a shallow (