Frost Jacking on H-Pile

[jxzohio]

The project site has a design frost penetration depth of 3.7 meters. The recommended adfreeze uplift force on the sides of pile is quite large (100 kPa). I'm thinking of tar-coating the top 4.7 meters of my H-pile. Is this (tar-coating) a common practice in the cold region area? I also want to know, from the long-term point of view, how much frost jacking force i still need to consider in the uplift capacity design for the top 3.7-meter coated part.

Any information and comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dicksewerrat]

I would lok at using a sleeve around the top 7-8 meters of the pile. Then the top of pile will be isolated from the frost action.

 

[jxzohio]

From a construction point of view, it will be difficult to install sleeves. In addition to this, I aslo need lateral capacity of H piles. Installing sleeves will signifcantly undermine the lateral capacity.

I may just have to drive the piles deep enough to resist the adfreeze uplift force. But that's going to be very hard driving since very dense gravel (bottom layer) is at 9 meters below ground.

I'm wondering how geotech guys in Alaska or northern Canada deal with this kind of situation?