Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250

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Transportation Geotechnics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trgeo

Ground temperature characteristics during artificial freezing around a T

subway cross passage
⁎
Wenhu Fan1, Ping Yang
Department of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Artificial ground freezing (AGF) has been extensively used in the construction of subway cross passages in soft
Artificial ground freezing ground to ensure the safety of excavation. The temperature characteristics during freezing are of great interests,
Cross passage as it can be used to determine whether the frozen wall satisfies the design requirements in terms of dimension
Temperature characteristics and strength. This paper presents a detailed case study of a cross passage including the temperature variations in
Thermal model
brine and selected monitoring points around the passage based on the field testing results during freezing and
frozen wall maintenance. In particular, temperature data was collected at various depths along settlement ob-
servation holes installed on top of the frozen wall. It was found that the frozen wall development rate toward the
cross passage is 1.43 times faster than that away from the passage in the silt. A three-dimensional numerical
model was used to analyse the temperature distribution and was able to accurately reflect the temperature
distribution within the entire frozen zone with uneven distribution of the freezing pipes during freezing. This
paper provides a valuable case study of the temperature characteristics of a cross passage with uneven freezing
pipe distribution and a thermal model with complete thermal properties at both frozen and unfrozen status,
which can be useful for thermal model calibration and/or temperature field prediction in artificial freezing
engineering.

Introduction the safety of manual excavation. Currently, several approaches have

There are many risks in the construction of subway tunnels in soft
ground, especially when the tunnel boring machine starts or exits a
shield tunnel, or during cross passage excavation (e.g. [12,5,3,14]).
Manual excavation is commonly used in the construction of a cross
passage, which results in more risks. Artificial ground freezing (AGF)
with brine has been widely applied in the construction of cross passages
to provide ground reinforcement and waterproof sealing to ensure
safety in manual excavation [1]. The freezing pipes used in AGF typi-
cally contain two concentric pipes, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The outer
pipe with a closed conical end can be used to drill into the ground easily
and the inner one is open. The cold brine enters the inner pipe and then
returns through the gap between the outer pipe and inner pipe when it
reaches the tip of the inner pipe. Heat exchanging occurs between the
cold brine and warmer soils.
The temperature characteristics at the frozen wall is among the most
important information in artificial freezing engineering (AFE) as it is
used to determine if the frozen wall satisfy the design requirements,
often prescribed in terms of dimension and strength, in order to ensure
been used for investigating temperature characteristics, such as phy-
sical model test, field investigation, and/or numerical simulation (e.g.
[6,3,17]). However, very limited studies exist for the ground tem-
perature characteristics around a cross passage, and little field mon-
itoring data is available. Previous studies presented temperature data
collected from observation holes installed from subway tunnels (e.g.
[7,8]), but few studies paid attention to the temperature distribution on
the top of the frozen wall [11]. The thickness and strength of frozen
wall on the top are of great importance to ensure safety in manual
excavation of cross passage. Furthermore, even though in-situ mon-
itoring can help reveal temperature information in selected locations,
the overall thermal status of the whole frozen zone is still unclear and
simplified finite element models such as a two-dimensional model are
often used to estimate temperature distribution along the transverse
direction of a cross passage. Such simplified models are difficult to
reflect the actual thermal status along the longitudinal direction of a
cross passage, especially when the freezing pipes are unevenly dis-
tributed (e.g. [15]).
This paper presents a detailed case study of the in-situ thermal

⁎
Corresponding author at: No. 159 Longpan Road, School of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210037, China.
E-mail address: yangping@njfu.edu.cn (P. Yang).
1
No. 159 Longpan Road, School of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210037, China.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trgeo.2019.100250
Received 28 February 2019; Received in revised form 12 May 2019; Accepted 4 June 2019
Available online 05 June 2019
2214-3912/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
W. Fan and P. Yang
Fig. 1. Schematic of freezing pipe.
status of a cross passage, during artificial ground freezing. Beside ob-
servation holes arranged at the sides of the cross passage, two ob-
servation holes on the top of frozen wall designed to for settlement
monitoring were also used for temperature observation. Furthermore, a
three-dimensional numerical model is used to analyze the temperature
distributions of the cross passage along its longitudinal and transverse
directions.
Project overview
The cross passage was located in silt and silt with sand, with poor
stability during excavation if no treatment was performed. Therefore,
the brine freezing method was utilized to reinforce the ground around
the cross passage. As shown in Fig. 2, a total of 66 freezing pipes
(89 mm in diameter and 8 mm in wall thickness) were installed at
spacing varying from 215 mm to 1000 mm and 13 temperature ob-
servation holes labelled as C1 through C13 were prepared by using
welded steel pipes. In the excavation, the temperature distribution on
the sides and top of a cross passage should be closely monitored. Eight
temperature observation holes (i.e. C1, C2, and C4 through C9) were
utilized to monitor temperature development at both sides and four
Fig. 2. Arrangement of freezing pipes and temperature observation holes: (a) plan view, and (b) cross section.
2
Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250
temperature observation holes (i.e. C3, C10, C12 and C13) were in-
stalled for monitoring the temperature on the top of the passage. Note
that, C12 and C13 were drilled from the ground surface, which were
used for settlement observation [11]. C11 was placed to monitor the
temperature changes in the area of drainage sump. It is worth noting
that the monitoring points were distributed at varying depths of holes
C12, C13, and C6 through C9, as indicated in Fig. 3.
The temperature of brine was set to less than −28 °C during
freezing and was then set to be between −25 °C and −28 °C during
frozen wall maintenance for manual excavation. The design calls for a
freezing period of no less than 45 days, an average temperature of
frozen wall of lower than −10 °C, and an effective thickness of no less
than 1.8 m. The inlet and outlet temperature of the brine were also
recorded during freezing and frozen wall maintenance.
Results and discussion
Temperature of the brine
Fig. 4 presents the temperature of brine in the main freezing pipe.
The total freezing time was about 79 days, including 45 days during
freezing and 34 days of frozen wall maintenance for manual excavation.
During freezing, the temperature at both the inlet and outlet decreased
rapidly and difference between them decreased from 2.1 °C to 0.8 °C.
After freezing for 22 days, the inlet temperature remained between
about −28 °C and −30 °C and the difference between inlet and outlet
temperature was about 0.6 °C. During frozen wall maintenance, the
inlet temperature slowly warmed up to −26 °C for easier manual ex-
cavation and the difference was still about 0.6 °C.
W. Fan and P. Yang
Fig. 3. Monitoring locations: (a) C12 and C13, and (b) C6 through C9.
Fig. 4. Temperature at the inlet and outlet of the main freezing pipe during the
ground freezing engineering project.
Temperature variations at monitoring point
At the sides of the cross passage
Fig. 5 presents the typical temperature changes of monitoring points
in C7 and C8. C7 and C8 were at the inner side and outer side of the
frozen wall, respectively. It can be seen that the temperature changes of
different monitoring points were the same, which can be divided into
four stages. For example in C7, it lasted 7 days in stage I and the tem-
perature of soils decreased rapidly with the average cooling rate of
1.9 °C/d. Then the temperature decreased slowly in stage II due to the
formation of ice crystals and ice lenses, the average cooling rate was
about 0.6 °C/d. After 10 days, the closed frozen wall gradually occurred
and the temperature continued to decrease with the cooling rate of the
decay (stage III). Finally, the temperature rose slightly or maintained
unchanged in stage IV because of a slight increase in brine temperature
and small temperature difference between inlet and outlet of brine
(Fig. 4). In addition, the temperature increased with an increase in the
depth of monitoring point at the beginning of freezing (stage I);
3
Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250
however, after the formation of closed frozen wall (stage III), the
temperature decreased with increasing depth of monitoring point. The
reason for that is the convection at the surface of concrete segments.
Compared with the temperature changes in C7 and C8 during frozen
wall maintenance, the temperature fluctuations of monitoring points in
C7 were more obviously than that in C8 due to the distance between
monitoring point and excavation face. The less the distance between
temperature observation hole and excavation face, the greater the
changes of temperature in monitoring points.
On the top of the cross passage
Fig. 6 shows the typical temperature changes in C12. At the be-
ginning of freezing for 18 days, the cooling rate was faster with the
closer to the freezing pipe. The average cooling rate increased from
0.1 °C/d for C12-3 to 2.1 °C/d for C12-1. After freezing for 45 days, the
temperatures of monitoring points were below 0 °C except for C12-3. In
the process of freezing, the temperature in C12-3 was higher than C12-
2, but the lowest was in C12-3. The temperature of C12-2 finally de-
creased to −16.9 °C after freezing for 45 days, which implies that the
actual thickness of frozen wall was more than the designed value
(1.8 m). Moreover, the freeze equilibrium time increased from 18 days
for C12-1 to 60 days for C12-3, which indicated that the closer to the
freezing pipes, the less the freeze equilibrium time during freezing was.
It resulted from different temperature gradient, which can be found in
laboratory tests [9,16]. The temperature data inside and outside of the
frozen wall on the top are rarely observed in the previous studies, ex-
cept for Yang et al. [11].
Average development rate of frozen wall
In the AFE, the average development rate of frozen wall is used to
estimate the thickness of the frozen wall, which means the average
development rate of freezing front. The nearest distance between
temperature observation hole and freezing pipe for C7 and C8 were
both 30 cm (refer to Fig. 2). As is shown in Fig. 5, the time of the
temperature reaches the freezing point (Tp) in C7 was 7 days but
10 days in C8. Therefore, 4.29 cm/d and 3 cm/d were the average de-
velopment rate of freezing front for C7 and C8, respectively. That is to
say, the frozen wall development rate toward the cross passage is 1.43
times faster than that away from the passage. The reason for this is that
the degree of cold loss for outward development was more than that for
W. Fan and P. Yang Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250

Fig. 5. Variation of temperature with time for monitoring points in C7 and C8.

Fig. 8. A schematic of the model.

Fig. 6. Variation of temperature with time for monitoring points in C12.
Table 1
Thermal parameters of material.
Material ρ Tp λu / λf Cu /Cf β
(kg/m3) (°C) (W/(m·°C)) (×106 J/ (W/(m2·°C))
(m3·°C))

Fill 1940 −0.44 1.60/2.20 2.72/2.13 8.5

Clay 1920 −0.50 1.60/2.20 2.69/2.11 –
Silty clay 1900 −0.40 1.50/2.20 2.66/2.09 –
Silt 1910 −0.31 1.60/2.00 2.29/2.10 –
Silt with sand 1890 −0.33 1.50/2.00 2.84/1.89 –
Concrete 2450 – 1.80 2.65 4.74
segment

Fig. 7. Soil temperature cooling rate vs. distance from a freezing pipe at dif-
ferent freezing time.
inward development.
In order to verify the conclusion above, the typical distribution of
cooling rate at the same depth (e.g. C6-4–C9-4) during freezing is
shown in Fig. 7. It could be easily seen that the cooling rate of C7-4 was
faster than that of C8-4 at different time although they were at the same
distance from the freezing pipe. Besides that, even though C6-4 was far
away from the freezing pipe compared to C9-4, the cooling rate of C6-4
still was a little bit higher at different freezing time. All of these in-
dicates that the frozen wall development rate toward the cross passage
was faster than that away from the passage.

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W. Fan and P. Yang
Fig. 9. Measured and numerical results of monitoring points: (a) C7-4, (b) C7-1
through C7-4, and (c) C6-4 through C8-4.
Numerical model for thermal analysis during freezing
Numerical model
Fig. 8 shows the model of 40 m in width × 40 m in length × 45 m in
depth built for computer simulation of the thermal field. The size is
considered to be sufficient to minimize the boundary condition effects
on the thermal status of the frozen wall. This model consists of five
different soil layers, subway tunnels and its concrete segments, and
freezing pipes. The numerical simulation was conducted by using
ADINA software.
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Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250
Fig. 10. Path scheme for numerical analysis.
Boundary and initial conditions
Some assumptions in boundary conditions are used in this numer-
ical model. The convective boundary at the ground surface or concrete
segment surface can be expressed as the following equation:
∂T
λ = β (Tg − Ta)
∂n (1)
where at the ground surface, λ (W/(m·°C)) is thermal conductivity in
the fill, T (°C) is temperature in the fill, n is direction vector at the
ground surface, Ta is constant atmospheric temperature (15 °C) due to
the average atmospheric temperature this city in the construction of
this cross passage and Tg is temperature at the ground surface, β (W/
(m2·°C)) is convection diffusing-thermal coefficient of the ground sur-
face; however, at the surface of concrete segments, λ is thermal con-
ductivity in the concrete segments, T is temperature in the concrete
segments, n is direction vector at the surface of concrete segments, Ta is
constant environmental temperature in the tunnel (10 °C) and Tg is
temperature at the surface of concrete segments, β is convection dif-
fusing-thermal coefficient of the concrete segment surface.
Moreover, the boundary condition of freezing pipe is
T = Tb (2)
where Tb is average brine temperature of the outlet and inlet in the
freezing pipe (Fig. 4).
Other boundaries of the model are adiabatic without heat transfer
and convection, which can be can be indicated as:
∂T ∂T ∂T ⎞
λ⎛ ⎜ + + =0 ⎟
⎝ ∂x ∂y ∂z ⎠ (3)
where λ and T are thermal conductivity and temperature, respectively.
Besides that, the initial conditions in three-dimensional temperature
field are confirmed by the following equations:
Tu |t = 0 = T0, Tf |t = 0 = f (x , y, z ) (4)
where Tu and Tf are temperatures in the unfrozen and frozen zones,
respectively, T0 is initial temperature of soils (19 °C), and f (x , y, z ) is
average temperature of frozen wall obtained by linear interpolation.
Constitutive equation for thermal conduction problem
In the numerical analysis, the temperature field with phase change
and heat generation can be described by the following equation:
W. Fan and P. Yang Transportation Geotechnics 20 (2019) 100250

Fig. 11. Temperature distributions along paths: (a) path 1, and (b) path 2.

∂T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ⎞ freezing. It can be seen that the numerical results show a similar trend
C = λ⎛ 2 +
⎜ + ⎟
∂t ⎝ ∂x ∂y 2 ∂z 2 ⎠ (5) with the measured ones but relatively small in C7-4 (Fig. 9a). In the
same temperature observation hole for C7, the temperature is much
where C (J/(m3·°C)) is volumetric heat capacity. higher with shorter distance from concrete segment (Fig. 9b). Fur-
In the phase change interface between frozen and unfrozen zone, thermore, the obtained temperature is obviously lower with a decrease
the continuous condition and energy conservation condition should be in distance away from freezing pipe (Fig. 9c).
met, which can be expressed by following equations:
Tf (s (t ), t ) = Tu (s (t ), t ) = Tm (6) Analytical scheme

∂Tf ∂Tu ds (t ) In order to study the temperature characteristics of soils around the
λf − λu =L cross passage, path 1 and path 2 in the middle line of cross passage with
∂n1 ∂n1 dt (7)
different direction are chosen in the typical plan, which is 19 m away
L = L′·ρd ·(w − wu ) (8) from the ground surface (Fig. 10). 5 points and 11 points are selected in
paths 1 and 2, respectively.
where s (t ) is freezing front position at time t, Tm is temperature at the
freezing front position, λ f and λ u are thermal conductivities in the
Modelling results
frozen and unfrozen zones, respectively, n1 is the direction vector at the
frost front position, L (kJ/m3) is latent heat, L' is latent heat from
Fig. 11 shows the temperature distributions of paths 1 and 2. From
crystallizing or melting of water (3.3456 × 105 J/kg), ρd (kg/m3) is dry
Fig. 11a, it can be found that temperature in soils basically increases
soil density, w is total moisture content of soil, wu is unfrozen moisture
from up line to down line. The reason for that is the number of freezing
content of frozen soil.
pipes drilled from up line was more than that from down line and the
Moreover, the thermal conductivity λ and volumetric heat capacity
spacing among freezing pipes drilled from up line increased with an
C were evaluated by the following equations [4,10]:
increase in distance away from the left tunnel. Moreover, temperature
near the concrete segment is a little bit lower during the first 15 days,
⎧ λf (T < Tm − ΔT )
⎪ λu − λf but the result is opposite and becomes obvious after freezing for
λ = λf + [T − (Tm − ΔT )] (Tm − ΔT ⩽ T ⩽ Tm )
⎨ ΔT 25 days. It can be explained that temperature of soils near the concrete
⎪ λu (T > Tm) (9) segment is affected by the convection at the surface of concrete seg-
⎩
ment. Finally, temperature is still above 0 °C at the end of freezing,
⎧Cf (T < Tm − ΔT ) which means that soils in the middle of the cross passage were still
⎪ Cf + Cu L unfrozen. Furthermore, temperature along path 2 is similar to sym-
C= + (Tm − ΔT ⩽ T ⩽ Tm )
⎨ 2 ΔT
metrical distribution, in which temperature decreases with shorter
⎪Cu (T > Tm) (10)
⎩ distance away from freezing pipes (Fig. 11b).
where Cf and Cu are volumetric heat capacities in the frozen and un-
frozen zones, respectively, ΔT is temperature change of phase-change Conclusions
interface, the definitions in the interval, Tm − ΔT ≤ T ≤ Tm , may be
assumed [2]. The thermal parameters of materials in this model are This paper describes a detailed case study of the ground thermal
given in Table 1. Except for β used in Yang et al. [12] and Zhang and regime of a subway cross passage during artificial ground freezing. It
Liu [13], others were obtained by laboratory tests. presents the in-situ temperature monitoring results and a three-di-
mensional thermal model for thermal regime simulation during
freezing. The following conclusions can be drawn:
Calibration of the proposed numerical model
(1) Settlement observation hole can be used as temperature observa-
Fig. 9 demonstrates the numerical and measured temperature at
tion hole, and the temperature monitoring points can be distributed
aforementioned monitoring points of C7-1–C7-4 and C6-4–C9-4 during

6
W. Fan and P. Yang
at the different depths in the holes to identify the thickness of
frozen wall on the top.
(2) The temperature monitoring data demonstrate that the frozen wall
development rate toward the cross passage is faster than that away
from the passage. In this study, the frozen wall development rate
toward the cross passage is 1.43 times faster than that away from
the passage in the silt.
(3) The numerical model can be used to evaluate the temperature
distribution of the ground during freezing. The temperature in soils
increases in the longitudinal direction of a cross passage, while that
in the transverse direction is quite symmetrical to the centre line of
the passage.
The temperature monitoring is very important and necessary in
artificial freezing engineering. Evaluation of the cooling rate in soils,
and thickness and average temperature of frozen wall all depends on
the temperature data, which can be used to identify potential problems
in the application of artificial ground freezing, or determine whether
the design parameters of frozen wall meet the requirements of ex-
cavation. The temperature monitoring data presented here can be used
to calibrate numerical model for simulating the cooling process of soils
in artificial freezing engineering.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51478226), the Priority Academic
Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, the
Doctorate Fellowship Foundation of Nanjing Forestry University, the
National First-class Disciplines, and research project of China Railway
18th Bureau Group Co., Ltd (Grant No. PG0084-2014).
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