In-situ measurements of frost penetration and frost heave by automatic monitoring system

Abstract

Assessment of frost susceptibility of clay soils is challenge for civil and road engineering. Inaccurate classification can result to damage roads, pipelines and building foundations. The most reliable way to get valid value of frost heave deformations is to measure it in in-situ. The article deals with results of in-situ measurements of frost penetration and frost heave via automatic monitoring system. The main idea of the monitoring system is to measure temperature and layered deformations of frost heave at the same time. Due to embedded magnetic marks in soils and magnetic sensors in probes frost heave deformations are defined as a function of changing magnetic field. The system is gathering information to local data storage and every day the data are transmitting to internet by using UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/ GSM mobile network. Results of laboratory testing and in-situ monitoring are presented.