Isogeometric analysis of THM coupled processes in ground freezing

An isogeometric analysis (IGA) based numerical model is presented for simulation of thermo-hydro-mechanically (THM) coupled processes in ground freezing. The momentum, mass and energy conservation equations are derived based on porous media theory. The governing equations are supplemented by a saturation curve, a hydraulic conductivity model and constitutive equations. Variational and Galerkin formulation results in a highly nonlinear system of equations, which are solved using Newton-Raphson iteration. Numerical examples on isothermal consolidation in plane strain, one-dimensional freezing and heave due to a chilled pipeline are presented. Reasonably good agreements were observed between the IGA based heave simulations and experimental results.