Experimental study on heating performance of a solar circulating heated embankment system for the treatment of frost heave disease in seasonally frozen regions

Frost heave is a crucial issue of concern in seasonally frozen regions, which directly causes many engineering freezing damage problems, especially affecting the stability of embankments. To treat the frost heave diseases that occur on the embankment in seasonally frozen regions, we propose a new solar circulating heated embankment system (SCHES) based on the idea of using solar energy to provide a heat source. A field experiment of heating a full-scale simulated embankment was first time carried out based on the SCHES. The heating performance and applicability of the SCHES were analyzed. Experimental results show that the SCHES has a good heating effect for a full-scale simulated embankment, which changes the temperature state of the surrounding soil of the heat accumulation pipe (HAP, is the heating embankment part of the SCHES) in the cold season. The surrounding soil mean temperature of the HAP exceeds 2 °C, and the effective heat storage is 404 MJ / 391 MJ, while the soil temperature without the heating action of the SCHES is below −1 °C and the effective heat storage is −68 MJ. The HAP mean daily temperature ranged from 10 °C to 35 °C, and solar radiation is the determining factor of the HAP temperature. The SCHES has a good heat collection performance with an effective daily heat collection of 8 MJ ∼ 26 MJ and a heat collection efficiency of 0.32–0.62. Comparing the seasonally frozen regions and the solar-rich regions of China, it is found that the SCHES has good applicability.