Development of a Geosynthetic Mechanical Stabilization Technique for Road Subgrade in Warming Cold Regions

道路在加拿大所有地区都具有重要的经济、社会和政治意义。路基是道路的基础，是道路结构中最低、最重要的组成部分。道路结构的岩土稳定性或安全性在很大程度上取决于路基土壤的强度、承载能力和沉降。然而，大量证据表明，由于气候变暖，在过去几十年里，加拿大无永久冻土区（约占加拿大陆地面积的一半）的土壤冻结和融化循环增加。这种气候引起的冻融循环变化对加拿大无永久冻土地区修建的许多道路路基的性能产生了不利影响，增加了它们的维护费用，减少了它们的使用寿命，并危及这些地区的人口安全和经济活动。因此，重要的研究和开发工作继续致力于寻找技术，以减轻由冻结/融化循环引起的路基退化，并在加拿大变暖的寒冷地区正确和经济有效地设计道路。在渥太华大学和Titan环境控制有限公司的拟议合作项目中，该项目将开发和研究一种新技术，该技术通过使用新一代定制土工格栅复合材料（GC）来稳定路基。鉴于全球变暖，这项新技术的发展将为在加拿大无永久冻土地区以及其他地区建设和维护道路系统开辟利润丰厚的巨大市场。这将为TITAN在国内和国际层面带来商机。此外，预计该项目的成果将对加拿大无永久冻土区产生经济和社会影响。此外，该项目为土木道路工程和适应气候变化培训提供了肥沃的土壤。

Roads are of vital economic, social, and political importance in all Canadian regions. Subgrade is thefoundation of the road, thus it is the lowest and most important component of a road structure. Thegeotechnical stability or safety of road structures significantly relies on the strength, bearing capacity and settlement of the subgrade soils. However, extensive evidence exists of increase in soil freezing and thawing cycles in Canadian no-permafrost regions (underlie about half of Canada's landmass) over the past decades because of the climatic warming. This climate induced change in freezing and thawing cycles has been negatively affecting the performance of many subgrades of roads constructed in Canadian no-permafrost regions, increasing their maintenance costs, decreasing their useful life span, and jeopardizing the population safety and economic activities in those regions. Therefore, significant research and development efforts continue to be devoted to finding techniques for mitigating subgrade degradation induced by freezing/thawing cycles, and to properly and cost-effectively design roads in the warming Canadian cold regions. In the proposedcollaborative project between the University of Ottawa and the company, Titan Environmental Containment Ltd., a novel technique consisting of subgrade stabilization by using a new generation custom made Geogrid Composites (GC) will be developed and studied in this project. The development of the proposed new technique will open up the lucrative and immense market of building and maintaining road systems in the Canadian no-permafrost regions in light of global warming as well as in other regions. This will result in business opportunities for TITAN at both the national and international levels. Moreover, it is expected that the results of this project will have economic and social impacts on the Canadian no-permafrost regions. Furthermore, this project is fertile ground for the training of civil road engineering and climate change adaptation.