My research interests lie in the fields of Arctic mining and safe mining techniques. Due to the influence of cold and extremely cold climate, the Arctic mining is facing unique challenges of ground freezing and thawing besides the regular mining/geotechnical considerations. The accurate description of the thermal process in the North is of great interest. For example, the ground-air interface under heat exchange are affected by complex climate conditions, such as air temperature, wind speed, snow density and thickness, solar radiation, evaporation as well as the long-term influence of global warming. I am a key member of several large projects for Arctic mine water and mine waste (tailings, waster rock and overburden) management. In these Arctic projects, research problems are, but not limited to, geothermal modeling, waste rock pile internal heat generation and convection, cement heat generation under low curing temperature, mine backfill with tailings, and tailings beach slope prediction. My future research projects are expected to promote new knowledge and techniques to Arctic mining industry and help the Northern engineering community by experimental and numerical studies.
