Chilled Pipeline and Frost Heaving

[oskar11]

Has anyone had experience with calculation of frost bulb growth surrounding a buried chilled pipeline? If so, a link or some tips would be greatly appreciated. I have searched long and hard and have not found anything of use, so if anyone here has experience, I would love to discuss the topic. Thanks.

 

[dicksewerrat]

Talk to people in the pipeline industry that work with nat. gas.

 

[CarlB]

The people at Arctic Foundations may be of help. Their thermosyphon freezes ground, though usually in a vertical application.

http://www.arcticfoundations.com/

You can get software to do this-

http://www.geo-slope.com/products/tempw2004.aspx

Look in Chapter 12 of this publication for equations for heat loss from buried pipes:

http://www.ccb.org/docs/COETM/5_852_5.pdf

A basic Arctic foundation textbook usually includes "freezeback pile" calculations - time to freeze a soil-water slurry in the annular space around a pile placed in permafrost. This is similar, but in a reverse direction, to your problem. You can find the process/equations for this in Chapter 4 of:

http://www.usace.army.mil/inet/usace-docs/armytm/tm5-852-4/