Change in thermal resistance of snow cover by land reclamation in cryolithozone

A brief review of research on variation of thermal resistance of snow cover and formulas to determine the thermal conductivity coefficient of snow are presented. This article aims to establish the regularities of variation in thermal resistance of snow when compressive melioration is applied to the snow cover. A criterion consisting of ratio of initial thermal resistance to the thermal resistance after compression is introduced. Two practically relevant cases, a full and partial compression, whereby the snow density after compression is a constant and a variable respectively, are considered. It is demonstrated that the area where it can be assumed that the snow density after compression is a constant has a low confidence interval and in practical applications it needs to be accounted for that the snow cover is not fully compressed under load. The calculation results are presented in a generalized dimensionless form that includes an indicator of arbitrary exponent in an approximated formula to determine the thermal conductivity coefficient from snow density. It has been established that the type of functional dependence of thermal conductivity coefficient on snow density has a significant influence on the calculation results of the thermal resistance of snow cover. The boundary values of snow compression coefficient within the permissible error level (10 %) were found. For example, for a linear dependence of the thermal conductivity coefficient on density the permissible compression coefficient is no higher than 1.25. For a quadratic dependence, it is 1.11. The results of variant calculations are presented as 2D and 3D charts, which allow quickly assessing the assumptions and conclusions.

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