Investigation of Temperature Variation Characteristics and a Prediction Model of Sandy Soil Thermal Conductivity in the Near-Phase-Transition Zone

Soil thermal conductivity in the near-phase-transition zone is a key parameter affecting the thermal stability of permafrost engineering and its catastrophic thermal processes. Therefore, accurately determining the soil thermal conductivity in this specific temperature zone has important theoretical and engineering significance. In the present work, a method for testing the thermal conductivity of fine sandy soil in the near-phase-transition zone was proposed by measuring thermal conductivity with the transient plane heat source method and determining the volumetric specific heat capacity by weighing unfrozen water contents. The unfrozen water content of sand specimens in the near-phase-transition zone was tested, and a corresponding empirical fitting formula was established. Finally, based on the testing results, temperature variation trends and parameter influence laws of thermal conductivity in the near-phase-transition zone were analyzed, and thermal conductivity prediction models based on multiple regression (MR) and a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) were also established. The results show the following: (1) The average error of the proposed test method in this work and the reference steady-state heat flow method is only 7.25%, which validates the reliability of the proposed test method. (2) The variation in unfrozen water contents in fine sandy soil in the range of 0~−3 °C accounts for over 80% of the variation in the entire negative temperature range. The unfrozen water content and thermal conductivity curves exhibit a similar trend, and the near-phase-transition zone can be divided into a drastic phase transition zone and a stable phase transition zone. (3) Increases in the thermal conductivity of fine sandy soil mainly occur the drastic phase transition zone, where these increases account for about 60% of the total increase in thermal conductivity in the entire negative temperature region. With the increase in density and total water content, the rate of increase in thermal conductivity in the drastic phase transition zone gradually decreases. (4) The R2, MAE, and RSME of the RBFNN model in the drastic phase transition zone are 0.991, 0.011, and 0.021, respectively, which are better than those of the MR prediction model.