Soil Freezing Characteristic Surface for Partially Frozen Soils
Location
Havener Center, Carver/turner Room, 9:30am-11:30 am
Start Date
4-2-2026 9:30 AM
End Date
4-2-2026 10:00 AM
Presentation Date
April 2, 2026; 9:30am-10:00am
Description
The soil freezing characteristic curve (SFCC), which relates unfrozen water content to temperature, is a fundamental constitutive relationship in frost heave simulations. However, the influence of soil suction, another critical state variable, is often neglected. Recognizing this limitation, the concept of soil freezing characteristic surface (SFCS) is proposed to incorporate the impacts of both temperature and suction on unfrozen water content. After that a method is introduced to construct the SFCS using the boundary SFCC (suction = 0), the boundary soil water characteristic curve (SWCC, temperature = 0 °C), and SWCC or SFCC under varying temperature or suction levels, all of which can be obtained through laboratory experiments. Validation against experimental data from initially saturated and initially unsaturated soils confirms the accuracy and applicability of the proposed SFCS. The proposed SFCS systematically captures the characteristics between SFCC and SWCC: they are similar yet distinct, interact rather than function independently.
Biography
Antai Dong is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at MST. His research focuses on constitutive modeling of water content and volume change during freezing–thawing processes, as well as the development of fully coupled thermal–hydro–mechanical (THM) models within the framework of unsaturated soil mechanics. He also works on numerical simulation methods and anti-frost-heave strategies for cold-region geotechnical engineering.
Antai has authored multiple peer-reviewed journal papers in outlets such as the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering (JGGE), Water Resources Research (WRR), Journal of Hydrology, and Cold Regions Science and Technology. His work has been presented at international conferences, and he serves as a reviewer for several journals and conferences in geotechnical and cold-region engineering.
Meeting Name
2026 - Miners Solving for Tomorrow Research Conference
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Document Type
Presentation
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2026 The Authors, All rights reserved
Soil Freezing Characteristic Surface for Partially Frozen Soils
Havener Center, Carver/turner Room, 9:30am-11:30 am
The soil freezing characteristic curve (SFCC), which relates unfrozen water content to temperature, is a fundamental constitutive relationship in frost heave simulations. However, the influence of soil suction, another critical state variable, is often neglected. Recognizing this limitation, the concept of soil freezing characteristic surface (SFCS) is proposed to incorporate the impacts of both temperature and suction on unfrozen water content. After that a method is introduced to construct the SFCS using the boundary SFCC (suction = 0), the boundary soil water characteristic curve (SWCC, temperature = 0 °C), and SWCC or SFCC under varying temperature or suction levels, all of which can be obtained through laboratory experiments. Validation against experimental data from initially saturated and initially unsaturated soils confirms the accuracy and applicability of the proposed SFCS. The proposed SFCS systematically captures the characteristics between SFCC and SWCC: they are similar yet distinct, interact rather than function independently.
Comments
Advisor: Xiong Zhang, zhangxi@mst.edu