Simulation of weather-driven deterioration of clay embankments

Clay embankments used for road, rail, and flood defense infrastructure experience several weather-driven deterioration processes that lead to a progressive degradation in their hydromechanical performance. This paper presents a numerical modeling approach that accounts for the development of desiccation cracking in clay embankments. Specifically, a bimodal soil-water retentivity model was adopted to capture the long-term hydraulic behavior of clay embankments prone to weather-driven desiccation cracking. A numerical model was developed for a heavily instrumented and monitored full-scale research embankment with long-term field data. The model was able to capture the variation of near-surface soil moisture and matric suction over a monitored period of nine years in response to weather cycles. The developed and validated numerical modeling approach enables forecasting of the long-term performance of clay embankments under a range of future climate scenarios.