The Effects of Frost Heaving on Objects in Soils, II: Laboratory Experiments

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Abstract
Recent laboratory studies of frost heaving of artifacts in soils are relevant to archaeologists, geomorphologists, and Arctic and Alpine specialists. Investigations were undertaken to determine the susceptibility to frost heave of artifacts with differing effective heights (the vertical dimension of buried objects). To this end, wooden dowels oriented from 0 to 90 degrees from the horizontal and vertically oriented wooden parallelepipeds of different lengths were emplaced in saturated soil and alternately frozen and thawed. These studies show that differential frost heaving occurred; objects with larger angles from the horizontal and vertically oriented objects with greater lengths experience greater upward movement due to frost heaving. Moreover, in addition to being frost heaved upwards, artifacts oriented at differing angles tend to rotate towards the vertical with each freeze-thaw cycle. The significance of the results is twofold. First, statistical models generated from the data provide a quantitative assessment of the role of effective height in frost heaving of artifacts. Secondly, the results are important in modeling the mechanics of the frost heaving process because the distribution of component forces may be inferred.

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