Numerical analysis of application limits of Vyalov�s formula for an ice-soil wall thickness

Abstract

Artificial ground freezing is an efficient technique which allows one to sink the mine shafts under complex hydrogeological conditions. The aim of artificial ground freezing is a creation of a temporary wall of frozen soil around the intended excavation. To estimate an optimal thickness of an ice-soil wall, the Vyalov�s formula is widely used by engineers. The article is devoted to analysis of Vyalov�s formula on the basis of the numerical simulation. The numerical simulation has been conducted by the finite element method. For the simulation of a stress-strain state of an ice-soil wall a new computational scheme has been proposed. The scheme is based on Vyalov�s design layout for a vertical shaft sinking and takes into account a soil layer beyond the excavation bottom. A mechanical behavior of frozen soil is described by Vyalov�s constitutive relations. As a result, it has been shown that values of the wall thickness given by Vyalov�s formula do not agree with the ones obtained by the numerical simulation. In order to conform results given by Vyalov�s formula and the numerical simulation, two modifications of the formula have been proposed.

Keywords

• Artificial ground freezing
• Mine shaft
• Ice-soil wall
• Inelastic deformation
• Numerical simulation