An outdoor earth-tank experiment concerning frost-heaving prevention measures for reinforced earth walls using geotextile materials

It has been reported that earth walls reinforced with geotextile were deformed because of the frost heaving of backfill soils in cold areas. In order to establish a measure to control the phenomenon, full-scale tests were conducted adopting a replacement method, drainage method and insulation method to measure deformation during winter and the deformation was compared with the deformation of walls constructed by a standard method. As a result, it was found that the strain and deformation caused by frost heaving remained after thawing and were accumulated in subsequent years. As a means of controlling deformation due to frost heaving, replacing the fill materials with gravel materials was found to be most effective. It was also verified that installing insulators outside existing earth walls could control deformation attributable to frost heaving.