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Frost heave is displacement caused by segregated ice growth supplied by liquid flow, rather than solely by the expansion of water on freezing. A premelting film allows liquid access beneath the ice; thermomolecular pressure draws supply against viscous resistance and load.

A porous sheet of thickness $d$ and permeability of a porous medium $\Pi$ supplies a thin premelting film. The Darcy flow law equates water supply to ice growth for equal densities. With equal film and ice conductivities, negligible latent heat relative to the through-going conductive flux, and $a\ll h$, phase equilibrium gives $p_T=(\rho L\Delta T/T_m{)}^{3/4}(A/(6\pi h^3){)}^{1/4}$. The increasing gravitational load limits growth. A quasi-steady temperature field alone does not imply the negligible-latent-heat approximation.

Take $A>0$ for the repulsive molecular interaction, $p_0$ as the common reference pressure, and let $T_i=T_m-\delta T$ be the ice-film temperature. All ratios involving $T_m$ use its absolute value, approximately $273.15\mathrm{K}$, rather than the numerical Celsius value zero. The premelting film permits water to reach and freeze at the bottom of the ice while the upper surface is displaced upward without freezing there.

For equal phase mass densities, equality of the solid and liquid chemical potentials gives the Clapeyron pressure relation for equal-density phases. Indeed, $d\mu =-sdT+dp/\rho$ and $s_l-s_s=L/T_m$, so expansion around coexistence at $(T_m,p_0)$ yieldsThis is a pressure difference between phases, not a same-pressure Clausius-Clapeyron slope. The molecular disjoining pressure supports this difference:Treat the normal solid load as its effective pressure in this planar model. The gravitational load corresponding to hydrostatic pressure is $p_s=p_0+\rho gh$, so $p_l=p_0+\rho gh-p_T$. Refer the bath pressure to the sheet's upper gravitational datum, or neglect the sheet-scale hydrostatic head. The Darcy flow law then gives the upward supply and the ice growth rateHere $\Pi$ is permeability of a porous medium, $\mu$ is dynamic viscosity, and equal densities identify supplied liquid volume with added ice volume to leading order in $a/h$.

To recover the printed law, use the usual hydraulic control of frost heave idealization: the sheet's top is at $T_m$, the liquid film and ice have a common thermal conductivity $K$, and the flow is slow enough that latent-heat production is small compared with the conductive heat passing through the layer. In addition to a quasi-steady ice temperature field, this needsThe leading heat flux is consequently continuous through the film and ice. Their thermal resistances giveLet $B_T=\rho L\Delta T/T_m$, a pressure scale. The thermomolecular pressure and the molecular law then giveSubstitute this pressure into the Darcy flow law:The first term draws water toward the undercooled ice; the increasing gravitational load eventually cancels it.

Quasi-steady temperature alone is not sufficient to fix this exact prefactor. With film conductivity $K_l$, ice conductivity $K_s$, and nonnegligible latent heat, the appropriate additional balance isTogether with the Darcy equation, this is the implicit growth model. Even in the slow-flow limit, a conductivity ratio $K_s/K_l=r$ changes the leading driving pressure by $r^{3/4}$. Taking $r=2$ is a counterexample to obtaining the printed prefactor from quasi-steadiness alone. Thus the boxed equation is the intended equal-conductivity, thin-film, hydraulically limited model, rather than a consequence of only the stated quasi-steady assumption. This distinction is the heat-balance correction to a premelted-film growth model.

For that reduced equation defineThe scale $h_{\ast }$ balances $F{h}_{\ast }^{-3/4}$ against $\rho g{h}_{\ast }$; $F$ has units of pressure times length to the power $3/4$, so $h_{\ast }$ is a length and $t_{\ast }$ is a time. They yield

Set $u={\eta }^{7/4}$. The equation becomes linear:For initial thickness $\eta (0)={\eta }_0\ge 0$, the explicit solution of gravity-limited frost heave isThe usual zero-initial-thickness sketch usesIts early and late behaviour areFor $0<\eta <1$, the derivative is positive and ${\eta }^{\prime \prime }=(-\frac{3}{4}{\eta }^{-7/4}-1){\eta }^{\prime }<0$, so the curve is increasing and concave downward. It approaches the stable thickness $h_{\ast }$ exponentially. Initial thickness above $h_{\ast }$ instead relaxes downward; at $h_{\ast }$ it is stationary.

The singular slope at zero belongs to the formal reduced solution. Since $a/h\propto h^{-3/4}$, the thin-film assumption eventually fails as $h\to 0$. The early power law therefore describes an intermediate continuum regime after any microscopic startup, not arbitrarily early physical times. A finite positive ${\eta }_0$ supplies a regular initial condition when that regime begins. Gravity limits the ultimate thickness; molecular suction and the Darcy resistance set the growth toward it.