Modeling Temperature Distribution in Soil Profile Impacts of Moisture Transport, Snow Cover, and Soil Freezing

Prediction of soil temperature is important to the simulation of transport infrastructure with significant earth contact. A one-dimensional numerical model for heat and moisture transfer in partially frozen soils has been developed and validated. In addition to modeling conduction heat transfer, model variations that included moisture transport, snow accumulation and melting, and soil freezing and thawing were investigated. This model was evaluated against measured data at depths of 0.5 and 1.0 m for two locations in the northern United States. The results showed that the model was capable of providing good simulations of the evolution of temperature for the whole year. Comparisons of simulation results with five combinations of modeled phenomena to experimental data demonstrated that both snow cover and freezing and thawing of soil were important when temperature for soil was modeled. However, temperature was not substantially affected by the moisture transport.