ABSTRACT
The ground is frozen with freeze pipes consisting of PVC down pipes with an inner diameter of 21 mm centered with spacers in a copper pipe with an outer diameter of 41 mm. Three freeze pipes are positioned at the center of the box in the experiments, forming a vertical row perpendicular to
1 INTRODUCTION
High groundwater seepage flow velocities constitute a potential problem for AGF, since the heat transfered by the groundwater may hinder the formation of a closed ice body (Jessberger 1996). It is therefore necessary to carry out a reliable thermal hydraulic analysis prior to implementing the AGF. The complexity of the physical mechanisms involved (phase changes, heat conduction and seepage flow) excludes the possibility of a general analytical solution. In cases involving complex geometries or heterogeneous ground, numerical simulations are indispensable for the design of AGF measures. Due to the absence of precise analytical solutions, numerical models can be evaluated only on the basis of results obtained from physical models under well-defined boundary conditions. In the literature there are few results of experiments on AGF with seepage flow. The only results to have been published involve one test with low velocity (Frivik & Comini 1982) and some poorly-documented tests with small freeze pipes (Ständer 1967; Victor 1969). The aim of this paper is to present the experimental setup and the results of a large-scale physical model developed within a recent research project investigating AGF (Sres 2009).
