Seminar – 4 December‚ A framework for evaluating thaw settlement.

Date: Wednesday 4th December 2024
Time: 1pm Eastern Time / 11am Mountain Time

Zakieh Mohammadi will be presenting A framework for evaluating thaw settlement.

Thaw settlement is a common challenge for infrastructure built on permafrost, leading to higher maintenance costs and reduced service life. This seminar will discuss the development of essential components for a comprehensive framework aimed at evaluating thaw settlement in permafrost regions—an important resource for northern infrastructure planning. Key highlights include a new qualitative approach for assessing thaw settlement potential using regional and national ground ice maps and inferred soil textures from geological data. A compiled dataset of thaw settlement test results, which has helped address gaps in thaw strain estimation resources, will be presented. This dataset enabled the development of new predictive tools, including methods for estimating thaw strain in coarse-grained sediments based on particle size distribution and for highly organic soils based on water content. Additionally, relying on this dataset, the seminar will cover comparative analyses of thaw settlement properties across different soil types and evaluations of existing thaw strain prediction tools. The newly developed tools and approaches, along with the insights gained, will inform the creation of the final framework, contributing to designing resilient infrastructure in permafrost regions.

Zoom details for all our seminars will be posted in our Teams site.