Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

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Cold Regions Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/coldregions

Integrative heat-dissipating structure for cooling

permafrost embankment
Du Yinfei a, Wang Shengyue a,, Wang Shuangjie b, Chen Jianbing b, Zhu Dongpeng b
a
b

School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, PR China

Key Laboratory of Road Engineering for Cold Region, CCCC First Highway Consultants Co., LTD, Xi'an 710075, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 September 2015
Received in revised form 29 June 2016
Accepted 2 July 2016
Available online 4 July 2016
Keywords:
Oriented heat induction
Asphalt pavement
Crushed-rock embankment
Heat accumulation
Permafrost thawing

a b s t r a c t
In Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the construction of asphalt pavement is one of main reasons for permafrost thawing. To
decrease the heat accumulation in permafrost embankment, a new route is proposed by inducing a highly oriented
heat conduction in asphalt pavement and accelerating a convective heat release from crushed-rock embankment.
On this base, two integrative heat-dissipating structures, named G-IHDS (combination of oriented heat conduction
structure and crushed-rock embankment) and R + G-IHDS (combination of heat reective layer, oriented heat
conduction structure and crushedrock embankment), are designed. The results show that the net annual heat
accumulation in an embankment decreases by 16.7% for the G-IHDS and 34.9% for the R + G-IHDS, which results
in a temperature reduction in the embankment. For example, the summertime mean temperature on the top
of the embankment reduces by 0.66 C for the G-IHDS and 1.58 C for the R + G-IHDS. The cooling effect of the
G-IHDS is validated against an indoor irradiation test. It can be concluded that the permafrost embankment is
expected to be cooled by controlling an integrative heat dissipation in asphalt pavement and a crushed-rock
embankment.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In permafrost regions, black asphalt pavement has a high solar
absorptivity and is ready to store energy underground (Qin and Hiller,
2014). This breaks the original energy balance in the natural permafrost
(Sheng et al., 2001) and becomes one of the two main reasons for
permafrost thawing (Yu et al., 2013; Peng et al., 2015a). And then the
permafrost thawing contributes to an embankment settlement (Peng
et al., 2015b), which causes a series of engineering problems, such as
pavement cracks, uneven settlement (Zhang et al., 2016) and brings
thermal disturbances to its surrounding areas (Zhang et al., 2015a).
Therefore, this work is devoted to exploring a solution for decreasing
the heat accumulation in the embankment.
Many technologies have been proposed to prevent the problem of
permafrost thawing, such as shading board (Yu et al., 2008a; Feng
et al., 2011; Qin et al., 2015a), crushed-rock revetment (Zhang et al.,
2006a; Ma et al., 2008; Lai et al., 2009), ventilated duct (Niu et al.,
2006; Yu et al., 2008b; Zhang et al., 2008; Qin and Zhang, 2013),
crushed-rock interlayer (Wu et al., 2007; Dong et al., 2010; Mu et al.,
2010), thermal insulation (Liu and Tian, 2002; Wen et al., 2005a,b;
Sheng et al., 2006) and reective surface (Bjella, 2013; Qin et al., 2016).
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sywang@seu.edu.cn (W. Shengyue).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2016.07.002
0165-232X/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The crushed-rock embankment is the most widely used technology for

permafrost protection (Mu et al., 2012) and has been used in other combined technologies (Dong et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2015b). Besides, a gradient heat conduction structure of asphalt pavement (GHCS) is expected
to be used to protect the permafrost in the roadbed (Wang et al., 2012;
Zhu et al., 2012). However, high-thermal-conductivity graphite is added
in the top layer, which allows this kind of structure to store more external
heat in the permafrost embankment (Du et al., 2014).
To effectively decrease the heat accumulation in the permafrost
embankment, a new concept of integrative heat-dissipating structure is proposed by using the coupling effect of the highly oriented
heat induction of asphalt pavement (Du et al., 2014) and the heat
convection of crushed-rock interlayer in winter (Qian et al., 2012).
To decrease the summertime daily heat storage and increase the
wintertime daily heat release of the embankment, two integrative
heat-dissipating structures, one named G-IHDS (combination of
oriented heat conduction structure and crushed-rock embankment)
and the other named R + G-IHDS (combination of heat reective
layer, oriented heat conduction structure and crushedrock embankment), are designed by using the innite element software
ANSYS. The heat transfer characteristics of asphalt pavement
and the embankment are analyzed to evaluate the effect of the integrative heat-dissipating structure on the heat accumulation and
temperature variation in the permafrost embankment. The cooling

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D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

heat release from the embankment in winter by means of natural

convection, a crushed-rock interlayer is used. Also, the low-thermalconductivity crushedrock interlayer can prevent the downward heat
conduction in the embankment in summer.
3. Test materials and numerical model
3.1. Proportion of asphalt mixture

Fig. 1. Design schematic diagram of the integrative heat-dissipating structure.

3.2. Measurement of thermal properties of asphalt mixture

Table 1
Aggregate gradation of Superpave-13 mixture.
Sieve sizes
(mm)
Passing (% by
weight)

The thermal properties of asphalt mixture are signicantly inuenced by its void content (Mrawira and Luca, 2006). Besides, asphalt
mixtures in the top layer, bottom layer and exible base layer have
small differences in the designed void content. As a result, only a type
of Superpave-13 asphalt mixture is used in the numerical simulation
and experimental validation (Du et al., 2014; Du et al., 2015). SBS
modied asphalt, basalt aggregate and limestone mineral ller are
used to prepare asphalt mixtures. The optimal asphalt-aggregate ratio
is 5.0%. The aggregate gradation is shown in Table 1.

16.0 13.2
9.5
4.75
2.36
1.18
0.6 0.3 0.15 0.075
100
94.6 69.0 43.8
29.7
20.3
14.3 9.1 7.5
6.0

effectiveness of the G-IHDS is validated against an indoor irradiation

test.
2. Design principle
In summer, asphalt pavement tends to absorb a lot of solar radiation
and then transfers the heat into the embankment, while the heat in the
embankment is prevented from releasing by asphalt pavement in
winter. The coupled effect increases the heat accumulation in the
permafrost embankment and aggravates the problem of permafrost
thawing.
Total four routes are performed to reduce the summertime heat
storage and increase the wintertime heat release of the embankment
(Fig. 1): (1) to increase the reected solar radiation by asphalt pavement, a heat reective layer is designed on the pavement surface;
(2) to prevent external heat from entering the pavement, a heat resistance structure is designed in the top layer; (3) to decrease the heat
storage of the embankment, an oriented heat-induced structure is
designed in the bottom and exible base layers; (4) to accelerate the

To realize the purpose of a gradient heat conduction in asphalt pavement, two kinds of powder, high-thermal-conductivity graphite (thermal conductivity of 130140 W/mC) and low-thermal-conductivity
oating beads (thermal conductivity of 0.080.10 W/mC), are added
into asphalt mixture. A DRM-II thermal conductivity tester (Xiangtan
Instruments and Meters, Hu'nan Province, China) is used to measure
the thermal properties of different asphalt mixtures (Fig. 2). The instrument, based on the principle of unsteady state, can automatically
calculate the thermal properties of the test specimens according to
the characteristic of temperature change and thermal conduction
differential equations. Three plates are taken in each group, setting
sizes of 20 20 6 cm, 20 20 2 cm and 20 20 6 cm respectively. The test results of the thermal properties of asphalt mixture
are shown in Table 2. The densities of different asphalt mixtures
are assumed to be the same for the small inuence of the small dosage
of powder on the density of asphalt mixture.
3.3. Heat transfer model
In winter a closed-boundary crushed-rock interlayer can accelerate
the heat release from the permafrost embankment through heat
convection (Zhang et al., 2006b). So natural heat convection is used to
simulate the heat transfer of the crushed-rock interlayer in winter.
And the heat transfer of the crushed-rock layer in summer is simulated
by using heat conduction. The heat transfer models of the integrative
heat-dissipating structure are shown in Fig. 3 (in summer) and Fig. 4

Fig. 2. Test specimen for the thermal properties of asphalt mixture.

D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

87

Table 2
Test results of the thermal parameters of asphalt mixture.
Powder
type

Percentage by
volume (%)

Density
(g/cm3)

Thermal
conductivity
(W/mC)

Specic heat
capacity (J/(kgC))

Floating beads

0
5
10
15
0
5
10
15

2.45

1.0618
0.7504
0.6916
0.6529
1.0618
1.1143
1.1802
1.2207

1485.49
1507.30
1526.54
1541.73
1485.49
1322.07
1257.30
1229.03

Graphite

(in winter), respectively, where 2-dimentional and 4-node thermal

solid element (plane55) and 2-dimentional surface effect element
(surf151) are used. The element size of the plane55 is 2 10 cm in
the top layer, 2.5 10 cm in the bottom layer, 3 10 cm in the exible
base layer, 6 10 cm in the semi-rigid base layer and 12 10 cm in the
embankment.
The variations of the thermal properties of asphalt mixture with
temperature are ignored. Besides, the right and left boundary conditions
are assumed to be thermally insulated, because the calculation results
are extracted from the center of the cross section. In the summertime
model, the 10 m thick lling/natural embankment can be used to reduce
the inuence of the bottom boundary condition on the calculation
result. As a result, the bottom boundary condition is set to be thermally
insulated as well.
The heat transfer model is calculated by using the parameters listed
in Table 2 and Table 3. In the boundary conditions of the model, the
distributions of solar radiation and air temperature are approximated
according to Eqs. (1) and (2) (Yan, 1984). The solar radiation absorbed
by asphalt pavement is affected by the sky cloudy factor such as sky
emissivity (Qin et al., 2013). Besides, there are other factors inuencing
the daily solar radiation. As the paper purposes to propose a new

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of heat transfer model in winter.

integrative heat-dissipating structure for cooling permafrost embankment, we do not pay attention to the accurate value of the Q in the
Eq. (1).
8
c
>
>
0
0 t b 12
>
>
2
<
c
c
qt q0 cosmwt12 12 t 12
>
2
2
>
>
c
>
:0
12 b t 24
2

where q0 = maximum radiation in a day ( J/m2),q0 = 0.131mQ , m =

12/c; Q = total solar radiation in a day (J/m2); c = effective number
of hours of solar radiation (h), c = 10 h; = angular frequency (rad),
= 2/24 rad.
T a T 1 T 2 0:96 sintt 0 0:14 sin2tt 0 

where T1 = daily mean air temperature (C), T1 = (Tmax + Tmin)/2;

Table 3
Parameters needed in the heat transfer models.
Model parameter
Daily total solar radiation (J/m2)
Solar radiation absorptivity
Convection coefcient
(W/(m2C))

Maximum air temperature (C)

Minimum air temperature (C)
Semi-rigid base layer

Embankment*

Crushed-rock interlayer

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of heat transfer model in summer.

Parameter
value
Summer
Winter
Pavement surface in summer
Pavement surface in winter
Bottom of crushed-rock
interlayer
Summer
Winter
Summer
Winter
Density (g/cm3)
Thermal conductivity (W/mC)
Specic heat capacity (J/(kgC))
Density (g/cm3)
Thermal conductivity (W/mC)
Specic heat capacity (J/(kgC))
Density (g/cm3)
Thermal conductivity (W/mC)
Specic heat capacity (J/(kgC))

1.05 107
8.9 105
0.9
20
40
10
17
9
2
26
2.20
1.32
911.7
1.80
1.56
1040.0
1.30
0.4
1200.0

*Note: The thermal properties of lling embankment were assumed to be equal to those of
natural embankment.

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D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

Table 4
Initial temperature distribution in summer.
Depth (m)
Temperature (C)
Depth (m)
Temperature (C)

12.4512.0
20
8.57.0
0.47

12.011.5
18.79
7.05.5
0.15

11.511.0
14.36
5.54.0
0.34

11.010.5
9.97
4.02.5
0.43

10.510.0
6.61
2.51.0
0.50

10.08.5
2.45
1.00.0
0.55

11.511.0
7.19
5.54.0
0.34

11.010.5
3.32
4.02.5
0.43

10.510.0
0.42
2.51.0
0.52

10.08.5
0.53
1.00.0
0.56

Table 5
Initial temperature distribution in control asphalt pavement and embankment in winter.
Depth (m)
Temperature (C)
Depth (m)
Temperature (C)

12.4512.0
14
8.57.0
0.6

12.011.5
11.24
7.05.5
0.15

T2 = daily air temperature amplitude (C), T2 = (Tmax Tmin)/2; t0 =

initial phase (h), t0 = 9 h; = angular frequency (rad), = 2/24 rad.
The initial temperature distributions in the asphalt pavement and
embankment are shown in Tables 4 and 5, respectively. The wintertime
temperature distributions in the control asphalt pavement and embankment at 7 h on the 14th calculating day are used to represent the wintertime initial temperature distribution in the integrative heat-dissipating
structures, as shown in Table 6.
The temperature of the control embankment at the depth of 3 m on
the 14th calculating day (Table 7) is used to input the bottom boundary
condition of the model shown in Fig. 4.
According to the constant boundary conditions in Table 3 and the
initial conditions in Tables 4, 5, 6 and 7, the heat transfers of all the
structures are calculated for 14 days. In summer the heat ux that transferred downwards in a day is summed to be the summertime daily heat
storage. And then in winter the heat ux that transferred upwards in a
day is summed to be the wintertime daily heat release. The two indexes
on the top surface of the embankment on the 14th calculating day are
applied to design the integrative heat-dissipating structures.
4. Design of integrative heat-dissipating structures
4.1. Design of G-IHDS
4.1.1. Determination of the powder dosage in the top layer
In order to prevent solar radiation from entering the asphalt pavement and embankment, six heat conduction structures were designed,
as shown in Table 8. The results of the summertime daily heat storages
and wintertime daily heat releases of these structures are shown in
Fig. 5.
The low-thermal-conductivity asphalt mixture in the top layer could
prevent external heat entering the pavement and embankment. The result shows that 15% oating beads added in the top layer could decrease
the summertime daily heat storage by 4.1%. The power dosage in the top
layer had a small impact on the wintertime daily heat release on the top
of the embankment. For example, the wintertime daily heat release of
structure A1 was only 2.5% more than that of structure A6. According
to the variations of the summertime daily heat storage and wintertime
daily heat release on the top of the embankment, 15% oating beads
should be added in the top layer.
4.1.2. Determination of power dosage in the bottom and exible base layers
After the determination of power dosage added in the top layer,
another six heat conduction structures were designed according to the

design principle of integrative heat-dissipating structure (Table 9).

The summertime daily heat storage and wintertime daily heat release
on the top of the embankment are shown in Fig. 6.
In summer, with the increase of the oating beads dosages in
the bottom and exible base layers, less heat could transfer to the
embankment through asphalt layers and base layers. In winter, the
low-thermal-conductivity powers in the bottom layer and exible
base layer increased the thermal resistance of pavement structure,
which prevented the heat release from the embankment.
The summertime daily heat storage of structure A12 decreased by
8.7 104 J/m2, compared with that of the CS. By contrast, the wintertime
daily heat release of structure A12 decreased by only 1.4 103 J/m2. It can
be concluded that the G-IHDS should be designed to be: top layer (+15%
oating beads) + bottom layer (+10% oating beads) + exible base
layer (+15% oating beads) + crushed-rock embankment.
4.2. Design of R + G-IHDS
The albedo reduction caused by dark surfaces contributed to the
warming of the soil beneath paved roads (Beaulac and Dor, 2006).
Therefore, researchers used light-coloured surfaces to counter permafrost degradation. (Lepage and Dor, 2010; Lepage et al., 2012), which
showed good practical effect. However, the specic albedo value was
not very clear in these applications. Qin et al. (2015b) found that the
coating albedo varied with the incident solar spectrum and the pigment
albedo. In addition, it degrades when worn (Sen and Roesler, 2016). It is
difcult to determine the specic albedo value of the heat reective
coating. Dumais and Dor (2016) measured the albedo of the coating
used in the Beaver Creek test section to be 0.26 0.52 after two years'
service. In this study, the albedo is set to be 0.4 to calculate the inuence
of the heat reective layer and oriented heat-induced structure on the
heat transfer and temperature variation of the permafrost embankment.
Accordingly, the R + G-IHDS should be designed to be: heat reective
layer (reectivity of 0.4) + top layer (+15% oating beads) + bottom
layer (+ 10% oating beads) + exible base layer (+ 15% oating
beads) + crushed-rock embankment.
5. Results and discussion
The heat transfer characteristics of the CS, GHCS, G-IHDS and
R + G-IHDS were compared. In order to evaluate the inuences of
different structures on the permafrost embankment, the temperature
and heat budget on the top of the embankment were rst analyzed.
Furthermore, the temperature distribution and heat transfer efciency

Table 6
Initial temperature distribution in integrative heatdissipating structure in winter.
Depth (m)
Temperature (C)

0.09
13.35

0.27
10.29

0.45
9.58

0.85
8.06

1.25
6.49

1.65
4.94

2.05
3.53

2.45
2.35

D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595
Table 7
Temperature variation of control embankment at the depth of 3 m.
Hour
(h)

Temperature
(C)

Hour
(h)

Temperature
(C)

Hour
(h)

Temperature
(C)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

0.63
0.63
0.63
0.64
0.64
0.64
0.65
0.65

9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

0.65
0.66
0.66
0.66
0.67
0.67
0.67
0.68

17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

0.68
0.68
0.69
0.69
0.70
0.70
0.70
0.71

Table 8
Heat conduction structures in Group one.
Structure number

Top layer

Bottom layer

Flexible base layer

Control structure (CS)

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6

+15% graphite
+10% graphite
+5% graphite
+5% oating beads
+10% oating beads
+15% oating beads

in asphalt pavement were analyzed to investigate the heat ows in

different structures.

5.1. Temperature on the top of embankment

The hourly temperature variations on the top of the embankments
of the four structures are shown in Fig. 7. It can be found that the summertime temperatures on the top of the embankments of the G-IHDS
and R + G-IHDS were both lower than those of the CS and GHCS,
while the wintertime temperatures on the top of the embankments of
the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS were both higher than those of the CS
and GHCS. It can be seen that the temperatures in Fig. 7 uctuated in
very small ranges, so the hourly mean temperature and annual temperature amplitude were used to evaluate the inuences of different structures on the permafrost protection, as shown in Tables 10 and 11.

89

The summertime temperature on the top of the embankment of the

GHCS reduced, compared with that of the CS. The temperatures of the
G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS further reduced, showing better potential
effects on permafrost protection than the CS and GHCS. The mean temperature on the top of the embankment in summer reduced by 0.66 C
for the G-IHDS and 1.58 C for the R + G-IHDS. Furthermore, the hourly
temperature differences on the top of the embankments of the G-IHDS
and R + G-IHDS both reduced by 0.08 C, indicating that the heat reective layer could only prevent the solar heat entering the pavement but
had no impact on the heat conduction behavior of the R + G-IHDS.
The higher thermal resistances of the asphalt layers of the GHCS,
G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS prevented the heat in the embankments
from releasing into the pavements in winter. As a result, the wintertime
temperatures on the top of the embankments of these three structures
were higher than that of the CS. The calculation result shows that the
mean temperatures on the top of the embankments of the G-IHDS and
R + G-IHDS in winter were 0.83 C and 0.79 C higher than that of the
CS, respectively.
The annual temperature differences of the CS, GHCS, G-IHDS and
R + G-IHDS were 28.83 C, 28.08 C, 27.34 C and 26.46 C, respectively.
It can be found that the annual temperature differences of the G-IHDS
and R + G-IHDS were 1.49 C and 2.37 C lower than that of the CS.
According to the research results by Cheng et al. (2004), reduced annual
temperature difference contributes to raise the permafrost table.
5.2. Heat budget of embankment
The summertime heat storages and annual heat accumulations on
the top of the embankments of the four structures were calculated, as
shown in Fig. 8.
As for the GHCS, because a high-thermal-conductivity asphalt mixture was used in the top layer, the embankment stored less 6.9% of
heat in a day than that of the CS, although a low-thermal-conductivity
gradient heat conduction structure was applied in the bottom and exible base layers. By contrast, in the G-IHDS 15% of oating beads added
into the asphalt mixture of the top layer caused less 11.9% of the summertime daily heat storage on the top of the embankment. Moreover,
the low-thermal-conductivity crushed-rock embankment could also prevent heat from entering the natural embankment. In the R + G-IHDS the
heat reective layer decreased the solar radiation that could be absorbed
by the pavement. The summertime daily heat storage of the structure

Fig. 5. Summertime daily heat storages and wintertime daily heat releases of heat conduction structures in Group one.

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D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

Table 9
Heat conduction structures in Group two.
Structure number

Top layer

Bottom layer

Flexible base layer

CS
A7
A8
A9
A10
A11
A12

+15% oating beads

+15% oating beads
+15% oating beads
+15% oating beads
+15% oating beads
+15% oating beads

+5% oating beads

+5% oating beads
+10% oating beads

+5% oating beads

+10% oating beads
+15% oating beads
+10% oating beads
+15% oating beads
+15% oating beads

Fig. 6. Summertime daily heat storages and wintertime daily heat releases of heat conduction structures in Group two.

decreased by 24.8%, compared with that of the CS. The decreased summertime daily heat storage was helpful to reduce problems such as
short-term thawing of embankment and reduced smoothness of asphalt
pavement (Lai et al., 2004).
Due to having higher thermal resistance, the GHCS released less heat
than the CS in winter. Thus, the percentage of the annual heat accumulation reduction of the GHCS was smaller than the percentage of the
summertime daily heat storage reduction of this structure. By contrast,

in spite of higher thermal resistance of the G-IHDS than that of the CS,
the G-IHDS released more heat than the CS, because the crushed-rock
embankment could accelerate the heat release through natural convection. The annual heat accumulation on the top of the embankment of
the G-IHDS was 16.7% lower than that of the CS. The heat reective
layer greatly decreased the solar radiation absorption of the pavement,
which was helpful for the heat in the embankment to release to the
pavement and atmosphere. The annual heat accumulation on the top

Fig. 7. Temperature variations on the top of embankment in (a) summer and (b) winter.

D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595
Table 10
Summertime temperature variations on the top of embankment.
Structure

Maximum
temperature/C

Minimum
temperature/C

Hourly
temperature
difference/C

Mean
temperature/C

CS
GHCS
G-IHDS
R + G-IHDS

19.29
18.71
18.58
17.66

19.15
18.64
18.53
17.60

0.14
0.07
0.06
0.06

19.21
18.67
18.55
17.63

Table 11
Wintertime temperature variations on the top of embankment.
Structure

Maximum
temperature/C

Minimum
temperature/C

Hourly
temperature
difference/C

Mean
temperature/C

CS
GHCS
G-IHDS
R + G-IHDS

9.58
9.38
8.77
8.81

9.67
9.43
8.82
8.86

0.09
0.05
0.05
0.05

9.62
9.41
8.79
8.83

91

the G-IHDS but still higher than that of the CS. Due to having a higher
surface temperature, the pavement could release heat into the atmosphere by means of effective radiation and heat convection. This was
one of the reasons for the decrease of the heat storages of the asphalt
pavement and embankment. For the R + G-IHDS, the heat reective
layer decreased the heat accumulation on the surface of the pavement,
which led to a lower surface temperature of this structure than that of
the CS. The calculation result shows that the maximum surface temperature of the R + G-IHDS was 3.21 C lower than that of the CS.
From Table 3 it can be found that the solar radiation in winter was
much weaker than that in summer, which resulted in less solar radiation
absorption of asphalt pavement. So in winter the weak solar radiation had
a very small impact on the heat transfer of asphalt pavement. Accordingly,
it was difcult for solar radiation to accumulate on the surface of the
pavement. As less solar radiation could be reected in winter than that
in summer, the heat reective layer played a very small role in the wintertime heat transfer of the R + G-IHDS. For these reasons, there were no
signicant differences among the surface temperatures of the four structures in winter.

5.4. Heat budget on the surface of pavement

of the embankment of the R + G-IHDS was 34.9% fewer than that of the
CS.
5.3. Surface temperature of asphalt pavement
In order to analyze the reason for the decreased heat accumulation
in the embankment, the pavement surface temperatures of the four
structures were compared and shown in Fig. 9.
In summer, solar heat was prevented from entering the pavement by
the low-thermal-conductivity G-IHDS and then accumulated on the
surface of the pavement, which increased the pavement surface
temperature (Asaeda et al., 1996; Gui et al., 2007). As shown in Fig. 8,
the maximum surface temperature of the G-IHDS was 1.38 C higher
than that of the CS. As graphite was added in the top layer of the
GHCS, the surface temperature of this structure was lower than that of

In order to intuitively show the heat storages of the four structures,

their heat budgets on the surface of the pavement were analyzed, as
shown in Fig. 10.
Similar with the reasons for the surface temperature differences,
the summertime daily heat storages of the CS, GHCS, G-IHDS and
R + G-IHDS decreased in turn. The calculation result shows that the
summertime daily heat storages of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS were
12.7% and 29.1% less than that of the CS, respectively.
For the GHCS, G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS, the high thermal resistances
of pavement structures prevented the heat in the pavement from releasing to the atmosphere. However, the crushed-rock embankments
in the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS could accelerate the heat release from
the embankment. Besides, the heat reective layer reduced the inuence of solar radiation on the heat conduction in the pavement. Thus,
the R + G-IHDS could release heat easier than the CS. The calculation result shows that the wintertime daily heat releases of the G-IHDS and
R + G-IHDS were 5.0% and 6.2% more than that of the CS, respectively.

Fig. 8. Summertime daily heat storage and annual heat accumulation on the top of embankment.

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D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

Fig. 9. Pavement surface temperature variations in (a) summer and (b) winter.

Fig. 10. Summertime daily heat storages and wintertime daily heat releases of the four structures.

Fig. 11. Heat transfer efciencies at the depth of 4 cm in (a) summer and (b) winter.

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93

Fig. 12. Heat transfer efciencies at the depth of 9 cm in (a) summer and (b) winter.

5.5. Heat transfer efciency in asphalt pavement

The heat transfer efciencies in summer and winter are shown in
Fig. 11 (at the depth of 4 cm) and Fig. 12 (at the depth of 9 cm),
respectively.
For the GHCS, though the oriented heat conduction structure in the
bottom and exible base layers prevented the downward heat conduction, the graphite added in the top layer reduced the heat transfer efciency difference at the depth of 4 cm between the GHCS and CS. The
calculation result shows that the maximum heat transfer efciency of
the G-IHDS at the depth of 4 cm in summer was 23.0% lower than that
of the CS, which could be attributed to the following two reasons. On
the one hand, because the low-thermal-conductivity asphalt mixture
in the top layer prevented external heat entering the pavement, less
heat could ow through the top of the bottom layer. On the other
hand, the oriented heat conduction structure in the bottom and exible
base layers prevented the heat in the top layer from transferring downwards. Besides the above two reasons, the heat reective layer decreased the heat that could enter the pavement. Therefore, the heat
transfer efciency of the R + G-IHDS further reduced, and the maximum heat transfer efciency was 39.6% lower than that of the CS.
There was a very small difference between the heat transfer efciencies of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS in winter, which indicated that the
heat reective layer had a very small impact on the wintertime heat
transfer at the depth of 4 cm. The maximum heat transfer efciencies
of the two structures in winter were both approximately 29.0% lower
than that of the CS.

Fig. 13. Temperature measuring instrument: (1) CS; (2) G-IHDS; (3) Incandescent lamp;
(4) Foam board; (5) Temperature recorder.

At the depth of 9 cm, the downward heat transfer of the CS began

earlier than those of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS. The delays of the
downward heat transfers of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS were attributed
to the reduced downward heat transfer efciency caused by the lowthermal-conductivity pavement structure. The oriented heat conduction
structure in the bottom and exible base layers increased the differences
between the downward heat transfer efciencies of different structures.
The calculation result shows that the maximum heat transfer efciencies
of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS in summer were 33.9% and 48.1% lower
than that of the CS, respectively. The maximum heat transfer efciencies
of the two structures in winter were both approximately 47.0% lower
than that of the CS.
The downward heat transfer efciencies of the GHCS in summer and
winter were both higher than those of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS,
which conrmed its poor effect on the permafrost protection, compared
with those of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS.
6. Temperature validations by indoor irradiation test
Rutting plates with different dosages of oating beads were rst prepared. Each rutting plate was cut into four rectangular specimens
(120 120 mm). The 19 cm-thick test specimens were formed by assembling the rectangular specimens according to the structure features
of the CS and G-IHDS. Due to the difculty in preparing the one-step
formed 18 cm-thick rutting plates, the one-step formed 10 cm-thick
rutting plates were prepared to represent the exible base layer.
The cooling effect of the crushed-rock embankment on permafrost
has been veried previously (Wu et al., 2008; Mu et al., 2012). The
cooling effect of asphalt pavement of the G-IHDS was veried in this
section, which was used to indirectly verify the permafrost protecting
effect of the G-IHDS. The temperature variations at the depth of 4 cm
and 9 cm were measured, which were then compared with the simulation results to validate the heat transfer characteristics of the CS and
G-IHDS. The temperature measuring instrument is shown in Fig. 13.
The results are shown in Fig. 14.
Due to a periodic upper boundary condition used in the simulation
model, the temperatures in the pavement also presented periodic variations. From Fig. 14(a) it can be found that the maximum temperatures
of the G-IHDS at the depths of 4 cm and 9 cm were both lower than
those of the CS. And the temperature differences between the two structures were 0.89 C (at the depth of 4 cm) and 1.26 C (at the depth of
9 cm), respectively. Due to a higher radiation intensity used in the
indoor irradiation test, the measured temperature difference between
the two structures was larger than that in the simulation results. At

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D. Yinfei et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 129 (2016) 8595

Fig. 14. Comparison of temperature results: (a) Simulation results; (b) Test results.

the test time of 7.5 h, the temperatures of the G-IHDS at the depths of
4 cm and 9 cm reduced by 2.0 C and 4.8 C, respectively. The comparison result indicates that the G-IHDS can be used to decrease the heat
accumulation in the pavement by controlling an oriented heat transfer
in asphalt pavement.

Acknowledgments

7. Conclusions

References

To decrease the heat accumulation in the permafrost embankment,

two integrative heat-dissipating structure, G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS,
were designed by decreasing the summertime heat storage and increasing the wintertime heat release of the embankment. The
following conclusions were obtained:
(1) In asphalt pavement the highly oriented heat induction reduced
the downward heat transfer efciency. For example, at the depth
of 4 cm, the maximum heat transfer efciency in summer
declined by 23.0% for the G-IHDS and 39.6% for the R + G-IHDS.
The surface heat storages of the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS also
decreased.
(2) The reduced heat transfer efciency in asphalt pavement led to a
decreased summertime heat storage of the embankment. In spite
of a higher thermal resistance of the G-IHDS than that of the CS,
the annual heat accumulation in the embankment further decreased, because the crushed-rock embankment could accelerate
the heat release in winter. The calculation result shows that the
annual heat accumulation in the embankment decreased by
16.7% for the G-IHDS and 34.9% for the R + G-IHDS.
(3) The decreased summertime heat storage and annual heat accumulation in the embankment caused a lower temperature
in the embankment. The result shows that the summertime
mean daily temperatures on the top of the embankments of
the G-IHDS and R + G-IHDS reduced by 0.66 C and 1.58 C,
respectively. The annual temperature difference reduced by
1.49 C for the G-IHDS and 2.37 C for the R + G-IHDS.

Besides, in the indoor irradiation test the measured temperature

variation of the G-IHDS had a consistent trend with the simulated result.
It can be foreseen that controlling an integrative heat dissipation in
asphalt pavement and the crushed-rock embankment may be helpful
to decrease the heat accumulation in the permafrost embankment and
mitigate its thawing problem.

This work was nancially supported by 1) Construction Science Project of the Ministry of Transport, China (No. 2013318490010) and 2) National Science and Technology Support Program (No. 2014BAG05B00).

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