Abstract
The prediction of vertical movement in expansive soil is important primarily for the purpose of designing foundations and other horizontal structural elements such as pavements. Most of the existing approaches to predict vertical movement are conservative and over-predict soil movement and are based on field measurements from localised soil data sets. Therefore, a suction-based approach is adopted in this study, which has the advantage of considering the effects of both moisture energy (suction) and mechanical stresses that surround the soil. A simplified Excel spreadsheet is programmed to facilitate estimation of potential vertical movement (PVM) in subgrade soils using physical properties of the soil along with local climatic indices. The soil database from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is used to develop prediction models of suction compressibility index (γh) and diffusivity coefficient (α) and is subsequently used in the spreadsheet. A contour map of the maximum PVM values for the entire continental USA is generated using the geographic information system platform and the estimated results from the spreadsheet. Finally, measured international roughness index values collected from the massive long-term pavement performance database are used to validate the calculated PVM values.
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