The Eighth International Symposium on Permafrost Engineering was held in Xi’an,China,October 2009.The major topics discussed in the symposium included:permafrost engineering (involving design,construction and evaluation);mitigation of frost hazards in the regions affected by seasonally frozen ground;properties of frozen soils,model development and their applications;frost hazards and periglacial environments in mountain and plateau regions;climatic,environmental and cryospheric changes;and permafrost hydrology,cold regions water resources and land uses.The papers submitted to the symposium and lectures during the meeting represented some new developments of research on cold region engineering and environment.Here we summarized the works of the symposium in topics including:Permafrost engineering;General geocryology;Properties of frozen soils:model development and their applications;And climatic,environmental and cryospheric changes.During the symposium,the attendees pointed out that future studies should pay more attention to theoretical study and engineering mechanism study,and also on interaction between climate change and cold region environments and their engineering affects.
FuJun Niu 1,2,GuoYu Li 1,ShuPing Zhao 1,ShuJuan Zhang 1,YongGuo Zhao 2,HuiJun Jin 1 1.State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering,Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Lanzhou,Gansu Province 730000,China 2.Key Laboratory of Highway Construction and Maintenance Technology for Permafrost Regions of Ministry of Communications,CCCC First Highway Consultants Co.,Ltd.,Xi’an,Shaanxi Province 710068,China
With globe warming, road safety will change dramatically, especially within the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau permafrost regions. Because of higher elevation and better almospheric transparency, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has stronger radiation than other regions, which can change the daily variation of ground surface temperature on the Plateau. The awning measure （shading board） is one of the actively protected permafrost measures, which was adopted along the Qinghai-Tibet railway and highway and the Qing-Kang Highway in China. Field test results show that embankment surface month mean net radiation is 60-130 W/m2, but the value is below 20 W/m2 under the shading board, and the reducing level of naRn-al net radiation is 80%-90%. The shading board reduced the heat flow entering into the embankment by 80%,90% or more, with heat entering into the soil on the common embankment, but emitting from the embankment under the shading board. At the same time, ground surface temperature under the shading board is 6-8 ℃ lower than the exposed embankment. Test results show that the shading board measure can rapidly and effectively reduce net radiation and heat flow into the embankment, decrease embankment surface and interior temperature, effectively delay increase rate of soil temperature under globe warming, ensure stability and safety of the embankment, and guarantee unblocked road projects in cold and permafrost regions.
