Abstract
A box culvert (C-Box) is placed over the road in order to allow traffic to cross over a small river or other roads. Currently, two types of frost heave damage in cold districts are being reported: cracks that are generated when the road surface, which is directly on the C-Box, is lifted like the mound, and cracks that are generated in the sidewall by the frost heaving pressure. In the investigation to determine the mechanism of these damages, we set an embankment model in a large-scale low temperature room, and compared the results of soil temperature measurements and those of 2-dimensional FEM heat conduction analysis. As the result of these experiments and analyses, the soil temperature distributions and progress of freezing fronts (0 degrees centigrade) in the soil around the C-Box were reproduced. It was revealed that frost entered the soil around the C-Box from the inside of the C-Box as well as from the surface of the embarkment, and this frost caused the shape of the freezing front to interfer with each other, which generated a bigger frost heave.
