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Settlement of a Large Structure on Polar Firn
Sustainable engineering in remote cold regions requires use of readily-available natural materials for engineering applications such as building foundations. Construction of a large structure at the South Pole provides a unique opportunity to observe settlement of a compacted snow and firn foundation. Our settlement data from the new Elevated Station show that many factors enter into the determination of settlement rate. Because construction occurs over time, components of the foundation experience varying loads and different load rates. The addition of temporary snow access ramps, which were not part of the original design, introduced very large loads onto the snow foundation during construction. Survey measurements of the columns support the argument that a majority of the initial differential settlement concerns were associated with the snow ramps. The relatively short intervals between surveys during the summer seasons illustrated a random pattern of column settlement behavior. Upon elimination of any gross survey errors in data collection, we attribute this behavior to the (intended) load sharing design of the station's rigidly connected grade beams. Long-term settlement of the structure is dependent upon properties of the firn, and future investigations will address stress-strain relationships for firn appropriate at the engineering scale for this site.
Settlement of a Large Structure on Polar Firn
Sustainable engineering in remote cold regions requires use of readily-available natural materials for engineering applications such as building foundations. Construction of a large structure at the South Pole provides a unique opportunity to observe settlement of a compacted snow and firn foundation. Our settlement data from the new Elevated Station show that many factors enter into the determination of settlement rate. Because construction occurs over time, components of the foundation experience varying loads and different load rates. The addition of temporary snow access ramps, which were not part of the original design, introduced very large loads onto the snow foundation during construction. Survey measurements of the columns support the argument that a majority of the initial differential settlement concerns were associated with the snow ramps. The relatively short intervals between surveys during the summer seasons illustrated a random pattern of column settlement behavior. Upon elimination of any gross survey errors in data collection, we attribute this behavior to the (intended) load sharing design of the station's rigidly connected grade beams. Long-term settlement of the structure is dependent upon properties of the firn, and future investigations will address stress-strain relationships for firn appropriate at the engineering scale for this site.
Settlement of a Large Structure on Polar Firn
Weale, Jason C. (author) / Blaisdell, George L. (author)
13th International Conference on Cold Regions Engineering ; 2006 ; Orono, Maine, United States
2006-07-14
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Settlement of a Large Structure on Polar Firn
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