Potentials of Mitigating Pavement Frost Heave with Fungi

In this study, an innovative fungal-mediated technique is proposed to mitigate the frost heave in unsaturated pavement foundation. A bio-safe fungal strain, Pleurotus ostreatus, was fed with wheat straw and developed fungal mycelium successfully. A finite element model was established to investigate the mitigation of frost heave in unsaturated soil when growing fungi on the surface of pavement embankment. The results show that fungi slightly reduce the water content in pavement under the low rainfall intensity, which renders pavement unsusceptible to the freezing climate. Using the frost heave in pavement without fungi as a baseline, the frost heave is reduced to 83.63% at the center and to 61.20% at the shoulder edge by the fungal-mediated technique.