Coupled Analysis on Frost-Heaving Depression Effect of Geosynthetics Drainage Material for Road Pavement

The frost heave of subgrade soil causes cracking and unevenness of pavement structure in cold region, which leads to uncomfortable driving and high maintenance cost. As one of the measures against frost heave damage, it has been considered to mitigate frost heave by draining water from the subgrade soil in road structure since soil moisture plays a critical role in ground heaving. The wicking fabric, a new type of geosynthetics drainage material, has been recently developed to drain water out of pavement and reduce the water content. Previous studies indicated that the wicking fabric has great promise as n effective means to solve the frost-heave-related problems on road systems. The purpose of this study is to verify the effectiveness of the wicking fabric for frost-heaving mitigation under local weather and soil conditions in Hokkaido by conducting the coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) analysis. The result of analysis indicates that wicking fabric has an excellent ability to drain water in road structure and that wicking fabric is an effective approach to mitigate frost heave.