Abstract
Since snow and ice should be used as a foundation for constructions in such very cold regions as Arctic and Antarctic, it is necessary to understand engineering properties of snow and ice for these purposes. From such a view point, unconfined compression tests of wet snow were carried out as one of the basic studies on the civil engineering in the polar regions.
Specimens for the test experiments were taken from the snow patch called as Hamaguri-yuki at 2750 m above sea level in the Tateyama Mountain Area in the Central Japan (36°36'N and 137°37'E). Since the sampling was made in summer season, snow for test was wet and dense. The experiments were carried out in the horizontal tunnel at the snow patch.
The experimental results obtained by the tests can be summarized as follows.
a) Wet snow is one of the Locking Materials, namely, their modulus of elasticity become remarkably large after the compression was over a certain limit. When using wet snow as foundation for constructions, it can be recommended to use it after compression over the limit.
b) Wet snow is fairly stable for sliding failure. The effect of slow construction can be obtained when wet snow is used, as well as in the case of clay. Besides, the shear strength of wet snow is larger than that of clay.
c) Wet snow becomes danger to use for construction when it containes much amount of pore water, since it has a very low shear strength and is compressed easily. In addition, the weakening of structural skelton of snow occurs when ice changes from solid state as a material of structural skelton to pore water.
