Plane shear-wave propagation across the interface between saturated frozen soil and saturated soil
MA Qiang1, 2, ZHANG Jialun1, ZHOU Fengxi3*, XU Anhua4, CAO Yapeng5, 6
(1. School of Civil Engineering and Water Resources, Qinghai University, Xining, Qinghai 810016, China; 2. Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy-saving Building Materials and Engineering Safety, Qinghai University, Xining, Qinghai 810016, China;
3. School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, Gansu 730050, China; 4. Qinghai Vocational and Technical University, Xining, Qinghai 810003, China; 5. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science and Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China; 6. Navier Laboratory, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Marne-la-Vallée Cedex 77455, France)
Abstract：To elucidate the mechanisms of wave transmission and reflection and the associated energy-partitioning characteristics at the interface between saturated frozen soil and saturated unfrozen soil under plane shear-wave incidence, an interfacial wave-propagation model is developed within a Biot-type poroelastic framework. The continuity conditions for interfacial stresses and displacements are derived, and a plane-wave potential method is used to determine the amplitude ratios and energy-flux coefficients of all transmitted and reflected modes. A deterministic sensitivity analysis is then conducted to investigate the effects of key parameters, including the angle and frequency of incidence, porosity, Poissons ratio and temperature. The computational implementation is validated by comparing a limiting case with published results and by verifying energy conservation. The results show that the angle of incidence governs the transmission and reflection responses. Pronounced peaks or discontinuities in the amplitude ratios and energy-flux coefficients generally occur near the critical angles, indicating the high sensitivity of interfacial mode conversion and energy redistribution. The incident frequency primarily modulates the magnitude of energy partitioning, while the critical angles remain largely unchanged. Furthermore, variations in porosity, Poissons ratio and temperature substantially affect slow-wave-related modes, demonstrating that the slow-wave channel is the principal carrier of parameter sensitivity. Parameters associated with the frozen medium exert a particularly strong influence on energy redistribution. These findings provide a theoretical basis for assessing the dynamic response of layered interfaces and identifying freeze-thaw states in cold-region engineering.
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2026, Vol. 45 
