Study on the facilities and procedures for meltwater erosion of thawed soil

High erosion rate of seasonal thawed soils by snow- and ice-melting runoff in the high altitude and latitude cold regions has great impacts on ecological systems, industries, agriculture and various manmade infrastructures as well as people's lives. The facilities and procedures are of great importance for the studies on simulating erosion processes of melt-frozen soil. This study focuses on the method and facility for simulating the thawing process of frozen soil. The facility includes soil freezing system, melt-water supply system and experimental flume system for thawed soil erosion. The soil freezing system provides enough space to freeze soil columns in flumes. The water supply system deliveries snow- or ice-melting water flow of constant-rate at 0 °C. The soil flumes of 200 or 300 cm long, 10 cm wide and 12 cm high are designed to be assemble and convenient for soil freezing before they are thawed in one-dimensional manner from top to bottom. The one-dimensional thawing process is realized as follows. The frozen soil flume is put on ice boxes and thermally insulated with heat-insulating materials all around to prevent frozen soil from being thawed from sidewalls and bottom. The soil thaws with this system shows that it can meet the requirements of simulating the process of soil thawing from top to bottom. The thawed soil flumes are connected from end to end to form rills of 6–8 m long to run the erosion experiments under different designed hydraulic condition. The equipment provides facility, method and operation process for simulating one-dimensional soil thawing to serve research on the effect of thawed soil depth on erosion process.