Cold Regions Science and Technology 54 (2008) 120–123

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Cold Regions Science and Technology

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / c o l d r e g i o n s

Analysis of the thermal stability of an embankment under different pavement types

in high temperature permafrost regions
Li Jin-ping ⁎, Sheng Yu
State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, CAS, Lanzhou, 730000, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: The thermal stability of the embankment, including the influence of the height and width of the
Received 2 August 2007 embankment in high temperature permafrost regions was simulated and discussed respectively in terms of
Accepted 21 April 2008 different natural geographic conditions for asphalt concrete pavements and cement concrete pavements. The
aim is how to change the maximum thawed depth under the asphalt concrete pavements and cement
Keywords: concrete pavements with increase in service life and embankment width. The simulated results based on the
Thermal stability
observation of data from the Zuimatan of G214 road are analyzed in this paper. It is very important to select a
The maximum thawed depth
Embankment height
suitable embankment width and height in high temperature permafrost regions, especially under the climate
Embankment width warming conditions. The conclusion that 2.0 m embankment height for the 8.5 m embankment width and
2.5 m embankment height for the 12.0 m embankment width are the most suitable for the cement concrete
pavement construction in the experimenting road, respectively.
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction proved by the research into the heat stability of the steel fiber cement
concrete pavement on the Qinghai–Tibetan highway (Li et al., 2000).
The construction of highways may cause a large change in the It was also shown by Zhang JZ (Wu et al., 2005) that the monthly
energy exchange between the atmosphere and the ground. This average temperature at a depth of 0.5 m below a steel fiber cement
maybe caused by the climate change, as well as engineering activities concrete pavement was 1.0–3.0 °C and the annual average tempera-
after the construction of the highway in permafrost regions. Therefore, ture was 1.8 °C lower than that under an asphalt concrete pavement.
the thermal stability of embankment in permafrost regions should be According to Li DQ (Li et al., 2005), the construction of cement concrete
carefully investigated. Damage to the embankment is closely related pavements or gravel pavements is preferred to asphalt concrete
to the thermal stability of the embankment in permafrost regions. So pavements in high temperature permafrost regions. However, cement
the main problem of studying the damage to the embankment is the concrete pavements were rarely constructed in permafrost regions
study of the thermal stability of the embankment, whereby the because of the adverse natural conditions. Theories of the influence of
thermal regime of embankment is of great importance (Zhang et al., cement concrete pavements on the thermal regime of embankment
2002; Liu et al., 2002). were few. For this reason the thermal stability of embankments under
At present, there were two main pavement types: asphalt concrete asphalt concrete pavements and cement concrete pavements with
pavements and cement concrete pavements. The extent of the thermal
regime change for the two types of pavement is not same because
different materials used in their construction. The dark surface of the
asphalt concrete pavement absorbs a great deal of solar radiation,
increasing the temperature of pavement and negatively affecting the
thermal regime of embankment. This affects the stability of embank-
ment in permafrost regions. The amount of solar radiation absorbed
by the light colored cement concrete pavement is less than that of the
asphalt concrete pavement. The change in the thermal regime of the
embankment under the cement concrete pavement is therefore much
smaller. For this reason the construction of cement concrete
pavements could effectively improve the stability of the thermal
regime of the embankment in permafrost regions. That has been

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 9314967252. Fig. 1. Variation of the ground temperature of various drill-holes at the depth of 0.5 m vs.
E-mail address: ljp785@126.com (L. Jin-ping). time.

0165-232X/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2008.04.006
 L. Jin-ping, S. Yu / Cold Regions Science and Technology 54 (2008) 120–123
Table 1
Comparisons of the ground temperature at the depth of 2.0 m under pavement
Depth/m Asphalt pavement Cement pavement The difference of the
ground temperature/°C
The average temperature The average temperature
of 03–06 year/°C of 03–06 year/°C
0.5 4.58 2.74 1.84
1.0 4.48 1.95 2.53
2.0 3.60 1.42 2.18
different heights and widths in high temperature permafrost regions
was simulated in this paper using the practical observation data. Using
to the simulated results, the paper discusses the variation of the
maximum thawed depth under asphalt pavements and cement
pavements with the service life for different embankment widths.
2. Analysis of the shallow ground temperature
The cement section of K374 + 975 and the asphalt section of K375+
300 are the border upon sections. Both of them, the ground temperature
has being observed since July 2003. We draw the Fig. 1 that is the
variation of the ground temperature of various drill-holes at the depth of
0.5 m vs. time through analyzing the observation of the ground
temperature. And find that there is distinct difference of the ground
temperature between the sections of K374 + 975 and K375+ 300.
Fig. 1 shows that the construction of the cement and asphalt
pavement cause a large change in the shallow thermal regime in
partly. There is distinct difference in the ground temperature at the
depth of 0.5 m between the two pavements. The ground temperature
under cement pavement is always lower than that under asphalt
pavement. And there is distinctly seasonal difference in the difference
of the ground temperature at the depth of 0.5 m between them; it is
obviously larger in summer than that in winter. In summer, the ground
temperature under the cement pavement is higher 5–6 °C than that
under the natural ground at the depth of 0.5 m. However, the ground
temperature under the asphalt pavement is even higher 10 °C than
that under the natural ground at the depth of 0.5 m. In winter, the
difference between them is little; both of them are less than 1.0 °C. The
Fig. 2. The profile of embankment. Where: the zone I is gravel; the zone II is sub-clay; the zone III is crushed rock and sub-clay; the zone IV is argillaceous rocks.
121
reason is that the sensitivity of the asphalt is higher than that of the
cement to the temperature.
In order to further narrate the difference of the ground tempera-
ture between the two pavements, the average temperature of 2003–
2006 years under K417 + 970 asphalt pavement in the section of
seasonally frozen ground and K418 + 030 cement pavement in the
section of permafrost, as well its difference between them at the
depths of 0.5–2.0 m were given in Table 1.
In Table 1 it can be clearly seen that the average temperature of
2003–2006 years under K417 + 970 asphalt pavement in the section of
seasonally frozen ground at the depths of 05–2.0 m is higher 1.84–2.53 °C
than that K418 + 030 cement pavement in the section of permafrost. The
difference of the ground temperature between the two pavements in the
section of seasonally frozen ground is even lager than that in the section
of permafrost. It is shown that constructing cement pavement is more
stability than constructing asphalt pavement in the thermal stability of
embankment.
3. Mathematical models
The freezing and thawing cycles of embankments in permafrost
regions is the process of heat and mass transfer accompanying heat
flow and redistribution. So the mechanism of the internal water and
heat function of the embankment in permafrost regions could be
considered to be a heat transfer that considers moisture migration
accompanying phase changes.
4. Computational region and boundary condition
Fig. 2 shows the computational region. We selected three
embankment widths of 8.5 m, 12.0 m, and 22.5 m, representing the
highways with different grades respectively (People's Republic of
China Profession Standards, 1998). The gradient of embankment slope
is 1:1.5. The embankment height is adjustable in the calculation. The
flank fields of the both sides are 20 m from the foot of slope, the lower
boundary is 30 m below the natural ground surface. The stability of
the thermal regime of the embankment under asphalt concrete
pavement and cement concrete pavement, with different embank-
ment heights and widths is analyzed.
122 L. Jin-ping, S. Yu / Cold Regions Science and Technology 54 (2008) 120–123

Table 2
The annual ground temperature and the ground temperature amplitude in the top
boundaries

The annual average temperature (°C) −3.5 The amplitude of temperature A (°C)
The natural surface (°C) −1.0 11.89
Asphalt pavement (°C) 3.0 15.15
Cement pavement (°C) 1.0 14.55
Gravel slope (°C) 0.2 14.2

The temperatures at the top boundary changes according to the

following expression:
 
2pt
T ¼ T0 þ R0 t þ Asin þB
365

where: t is the service life, B is the initial calculation phase, T0 is the

annual average temperature at the surface, A is the amplitude of

Fig. 4. The difference of MTDRACCC vs. embankment height.

ground temperature at the surface, R0 is the incalescence rate at the

ground surface temperature by global warming, R0 = 0.02 °C/a, T0 and
A are obtained by analyzing the observed ground temperatures in the
district of Zuimatan of G214 (Table 2).
According to the observation data in recent years, the tempera-
tures at the lower boundary surface changed according to the
following equation:

AT
¼ 0:02ð-C=mÞ;
Ay
The temperature in the horizontal direction at the flank fields on
both sides of the embankment is zero. That is

AT
¼0
Ax

Fig. 3. The differences of the maximum thawed depth between the two pavements vs. The temperature on the slopes of embankment is a little lower
service years. than that of the cement concrete pavement.
 L. Jin-ping, S. Yu / Cold Regions Science and Technology 54 (2008) 120–123
5. Numerical results and analysis
Fig. 3 shows that there are differences in the maximum thawed
depth for different pavement types with different widths.
The variation in the difference of MTDRACCC (MTDRACCC is short
for the difference in maximum thawed depth under an asphalt
concrete pavement and cement concrete pavement) depends on the
service life and embankment height for different embankment widths
at the annual average temperature of −3.5 °C. When the embankment
width is small (8.5 m) after a certain service life the difference in
MTDRACCC decreased as the service life increased. However, the
variation changed as the embankment width increased. It took on a
linear trend. To a certain degree the embankment widths have a
greater impact on the variation in the difference of MTDRACCC than
the service life.
Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the embankment height and
the difference of MTDRACCC distinctly.
In Fig. 4, it can be clearly seen that the embankment widths played
an important role on the variation in the difference of MTDRACCC as
the embankment height changed. For the width 8.5 m, the difference
in MTDRACCC increased as the embankment height increased for
embankment heights of 1.5 m to 2.0 m, for the other ranges of the
heights 1.0 m to 3.0 m the difference decreased as the embankment
height increased. Fig. 4 shows that the difference in MTDRACCC was
largest for embankment heights of 1.0 m and 2.0 m. The simulation
analysis also showed that MTDRACCC was smaller for embankment
heights in the range from 1.0 m to 3.0 m. Therefore, the most
reasonable embankment height to improve the thermal-stability of
embankment was 2.0 m for a embankment width of 8.5 m. As the
embankment width increased, the variation in the difference in
MTDRACCC with embankment height gradually changed. For the
12.0 m embankment width, the difference in MTDRACCC decreased as
the embankment height increased. The embankment height had little
impact on the difference in MTDRACCC when the embankment height
reached 2.5 m, as can be seen in Fig. 4b. Therefore, the most
reasonable embankment height was 2.5 m at the 12.0 m embankment
width. When the embankment width reached 22.5 m, there was
almost no change in the difference in MTDRACCC as the embankment
height increased.
A conclusion to be drawn from the above analysis is that the
embankment width plays an important role in the changes in the
123
difference of MTDRACCC as embankment height and service life
increase.
6. Conclusions
(1) The ground temperature under cement pavement is always
lower than that under asphalt pavement. And there is distinctly
seasonal difference in the difference of the ground temperature
at the depth of 0.5 m between them; it is obviously larger in
summer than that in winter.
(2) Through analysis of the ground temperature at the shallow
depths, we found that the difference of the ground temperature
between the two pavements in the section of seasonally frozen
ground is even lager than that in the section of permafrost.
(3) With the improvement of the grade of pavement, the design
according to the embankment width in the permafrost regions
is extremely important. It should also not be neglected to select
a reasonable embankment height under the climate warming
conditions especially in high temperature permafrost regions.
(4) When constructing a cement concrete pavement, the most
reasonable embankment height was 2.0 m for an embankment
width of 8.5 m and 2.5 m for an embankment width of 12 m
respectively in the district with an annual average temperature
of −3.5 °C.
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