Effect of a Freezing Zone of Finite Width on the Thermal Regime of Soils

The effect of a freezing zone of finite width on the thermal regime of soils is studied. For soils having a very thin freezing zone, the concept of an artificial freezing zone is introduced for computational simplicity. The computational method based on such a concept is found to be sufficiently accurate for practical applications. The classical method, which assumes the existence of a freezing boundary of infinitesimal width, produces a large error for soils retaining substantial amounts of unfrozen water at sub‐zero temperatures.