Articles techniques et présentations

We present COMSOL solutions for a coupled gas flow and heat transfer problem, which occurs particularly when traffic pathways are constructed in high altitude and arctic regions, where the underground is frozen soil. To avoid melting of the frozen ground (which usually leads to mechanical instability) one has to find suitable measures to keep the subsurface soil and the embankment suitably cool. Here we study two ways to do this: (i) protection of the embankment by awning constructions against unwanted heating by solar irradiation and (ii) cooling or heating by lateral gas flows, e.g. natural winds. We calculate the flow field and its influence on the temperature field in the embankment and the subsurface soil for laminar flows, using the appropriate COMSOL application modes.