Analysis of the feasibility of artificial cooling for the construction of temporary roads and service tracks

The article confirms the relevance of the development and implementation of low-temperature technologies for road construction in swampy or flooded areas. Currently, the construction of temporary access roads in swampy and flooded areas is subject to seasonal restrictions. Existing construction technologies present a number of challenges, including the need to import drainage soils; the use of wood-based building materials; low load-bearing capacity and reliability; long-term manual construction of temporary roads; low material turnover rate; the negative environmental impact from refrigerants. The article presents an overview analysis and considers a significantly simplified model of the object under study, which does not consider the possible variability of implementation, including the properties of the cooled medium and building materials, the type and properties of the bottom of the reservoir, the method of supporting the road foundation and other relevant factors. Even fairly approximate estimation results indicate the fundamental feasibility of expanding the range of calendar construction periods for service roads in swampy and waterlogged areas using low-temperature technologies. These results also support the need to develop economically viable implementation options. Given that the simplifying assumption adopted for the model – which assumes that energy consumption is proportional to the volume of the frozen ice mass, is permissible only as a conditional comparison under identical medium properties, temperature conditions, and cooling efficiency, the concept can be advanced to the level of a road construction technology for swampy or waterlogged areas only after a significant comprehensive research of the proposed technology and subsequent refinement of the existing regulatory recommendations. The preliminary assessment shows that the relevance and economic feasibility of the proposed lowtemperature technology will depend both on the remoteness and inaccessibility of road sites and on the reduction of the time required to commission the pipeline infrastructure for the hydrocarbon transportation.