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R E S E A R C H P A P E R

Thermal conductivity measurements of road constructionmaterials in frozen and unfrozen state

Norbert I. Komle Hui Bing Wen Jie Feng Roman Wawrzaszek Erika S. Hu tter Ping He Wojciech Marczewski Borys Dabrowski Kathrin Schroer Tilman Spohn

Received: 5 January 2007 / Accepted: 16 May 2007 / Published online: 11 July 2007

Springer-Verlag 2007

Abstract A series of thermal conductivity measurements

for various materials was performed in a large climatechamber. The size of the chamber allowed the preparation

of relatively large samples in a controlled thermal envi-

ronment. Three types of thermal sensors were used: (1) two

needle probes; (2) a grid of temperature sensors, evenly

distributed inside the sample; (3) two additional thermal

probes, which were simplified versions of an instrument

originally developed for measuring thermal properties of

the ice/dust mixture expected to exist at the surface of a

comet nucleus. They consist of a series of individual

temperature sensors integrated into a glass fibre rod. Each

of these sensors can be operated in an active (heated) or

passive (only temperature sensing) mode. The following

sample materials were used: fine-grained reddish sand,

coarse-grained moist sand, gravels with various grain size

distributions from < 1 cm up to about 6 cm, and for

comparison and calibration pure water (with convection

suppressed by adding agar-agar), compact ice, and compactgranite. Of particular interest are the measurements with

composite samples, like stones embedded in an agar-agar

matrix. We describe the evaluation methods and present

the results of the thermal conductivity measurements.

Keywords Gravel Permafrost Sand Thermalconductivity

1 Introduction

The experiments reported in this paper served a twofold

purpose. First, in many physical and engineering problems

the thermal conductivity of the materials is a key parameter

controlling to a high extent the thermo-physical behaviour

of the system. For example, in the construction of road and

railway routes the distribution of artificially or naturally

generated heat in the underground determines the stability

of the bed and thus the safety of pathways. This is partic-

ularly important on seasonally or permanently frozen

ground, like the areas transected by the Qinghai-Tibet

Railway [14, 15].

The second aspect of our paper deals with the devel-

opment of suitable sensors for thermal conductivity mea-

surements itself. For our measurements we have used,

among else, so-called needle probes. They belong to the

category of transient or non steady state measurement

techniques. In general, when using a transient measurement

procedure, an unsteady temperature gradient is induced

inside the sample by a constant heat source. The heating

occurs over an adequate time period. The thermal con-

ductivity and/or diffusivity can be derived from the mea-

sured temperature response due to heating. Common

Presented at the 1st Asian Conference on Permafrost (ACOP),

Lanzhou, Gansu, China, 79 August 2006

N. I. Komle (&) E. S. HutterSpace Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences,

Schmiedlstrasse 6, 8042 Graz, Austria

e-mail: norbert.koemle@oeaw.ac.at

H. Bing W. J. Feng P. HeCold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering

Research Institute (CAREERI), Chinese Academy of Sciences,

Lanzhou, China

R. Wawrzaszek W. Marczewski B. DabrowskiSpace Research Centre (SRC), Polish Academy of Sciences,

Warsaw, Poland

K. Schroer T. SpohnInstitut fur Planetologie (IFP), Universitat Munster,

Munster, Germany

123

Acta Geotechnica (2007) 2:127138

DOI 10.1007/s11440-007-0032-1

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commercialized techniques using this principle are needle

probes, hot wire methods, and the hot strip method. A

comprehensive summary of available transient as well as

steady state methods can be found, e.g. on the evitherm

website [5]. The advantages of transient measurement

techniques as compared to steady state techniques (like the

hot plate method) are (1) shorter measurement periods, (2)

suitability for a wide range of materials (solid and granular)and (3) a lower technical complexity. The latter property

makes them more suitable for field applications or even

application in space missions. On the other hand, the

measurement accuracy of transient methods is usually

lower than that of steady state methods. Therefore, steady

state methods may be more useful for calibration purposes.

Interpretation of needle probe measurements in terms of

thermal conductivity is most simple if the sample to be

measured has a homogeneous structure, is originally iso-

thermal, and is large enough that boundary effects can be

excluded. However, under more complex conditions,

which frequently occur in the natural environment, evalu-ation of thermal conductivity from measured temperature

data needs great care. We will consider an appropriate

reduction method for the raw data in order to derive reli-

able conductivity values from measured raw data.

Another way to evaluate thermal conductivity of a

medium indirectly is to use a grid of temperature sensors,

e.g. RTDs1 distributed across the sample and to introduce a

vertical temperature gradient. One way to achieve this is to

bring the bottom side of the sample in thermal contact with

a cooling plate. In our tests, such a method was used to

compliment and cross-check the needle probe measure-

ments.

In many applications the variation of thermal properties

with depth is of interest. This cannot be easily achieved by

standard needle probes like the Hukseflux TP02 [7]. They

can only provide average values over the length of the

probe. However, a thermal probe developed in the recent

years in the frame of ESAs2 comet mission Rosetta has

some ability to measure the variation of thermal properties

with depth in a soil. This instrument (MUPUS3), being a

part of the payload of the Rosetta Lander Philae, is cur-

rently on the way to its target comet Churyumov-Gera-

simenko. After landing on the comet nucleus surface, the

thermal properties of the cometary near-surface ice will be

derived [1, 8]. The probe consists of several segments

which can be separately heated in order to measure the

thermal properties of different layers subsequently. The

concept of MUPUS may also be useful for applications in

terrestrial environments. Therefore several probes of a

simplified variant named EXTASE4 have been built in the

frame of another project [10, 13]. First tests showed that

the interpretation of temperature data recorded by the

EXTASE probe in terms of thermal conductivity is by no

means an easy task. It demands a rather detailed thermal

model of the sensor itself and calibration measurements in

various well-known materials. In order to support this goaland to provide a broader basis for the interpretation of the

expected MUPUS measurements at the comet surface, we

have done some parallel tests with the EXTASE probes and

the needle probes in a well-known medium and compared

the results in terms of the obtained thermal conductivity

values.

2 Experimental equipment and setup

2.1 Climate chamber and sample container

The tests were performed in a thermally controlled envi-

ronment, namely a climate chamber of the CAREERI

(Lanzhou, China). This climate chamber allowed to

establish a homogeneous temperature environment in the

range of 40C to + 70C. The interior size of the chamber

is approximately a cube of 90 cm side length. A system of

fans permits fast relaxation of temperature inside the

chamber to a prescribed value. Furthermore, air humidity

inside the chamber can be controlled externally and set to a

prescribed value. During operation, the power devices of

the chamber are cooled by a cold water circuit.

The second major device used in our experiments is the

sample container. It is of rectangular shape (70 cm

70 cm 35 cm) and its sides are thermally insulated. The

bottom is connected to a cooling system working with

alcohol as cooling agent. This setup allows us to establish a

constant temperature at the bottom of the sample container,

which may differ from the set chamber temperature. Thus,

it can be used to establish a vertical temperature gradient

inside a test sample.

2.2 Thermal conductivity sensors

Three different methods for determining thermal conduc-

tivity were applied: (1) A commercial needle probe (Hu-

kseflux TP02); (2) a grid of individual temperature sensors

(platinum RTDs) which measures the temperature varia-

tions inside the sample during cooling periods; (3) a cus-

tom-built sequentially working probe (EXTASE) for1 Resistance Temperature Device, see http://www.temperature-

world.com/rtd.htm2 European Space Agency3 MUlti-PUrpose Sensors for surface and sub-surface science

4 EXperimental Thermal probe for Applications in Snow research and

Earth sciences

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