Hypergravity testing of thaw-dependent stiffness in permafrost under shallow foundations
Hypergravity testing of thaw-dependent stiffness in permafrost under shallow foundations
This study introduces new capabilities under development to investigate freeze-thaw processes in a hypergravity environment, enabling system-level physical modeling of permafrost and active-layer dynamics and their implications for shallow foundation performance. Conventional laboratory tests provide only element-scale measurements and cannot reproduce field-scale stress states, natural ice morphology, or the time-dependent consolidation that accompanies progressive thawing. By leveraging centrifuge scaling laws for heat transfer and stress similitude, the proposed approach enables the capture of thaw-dependent stiffness changes that are otherwise unobservable within practical laboratory timescales. Preliminary results demonstrate the practical requirements for frozen-soil sample preparation, boundary insulation installation, and achievable run times in a 1m centrifuge needed to generate a controlled, one-dimensional thawing front from the surface downward. Using these capabilities, the approach successfully captures thaw-dependent stiffness degradation beneath a shallow footing, showing more than an order-of-magnitude reduction in foundation stiffness as thaw progresses, from approximately 1390 MN/m to below 56 MN/m, and enabling settlement to be quantified as a function of thaw depth and the evolving thickness of the active layer.
Soo-Min Ham; Simeon Buttery; M. Gardner; Jason T. DeJong; Mohammad H. Khosravi; Ali Khosravi
11th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG2026)
Special Session 9: Physical Modeling for Cryosphere Applications
https://doi.org/10.53243/ICPMG2026-32