Prediction of lateral swelling pressure behind retaining structure with expansive soil as backfill

Abstract

Lateral swelling pressure (LSP) develops in expansive soil when the volume expansion associated with water infiltration is restrained in the horizontal direction due to a rigid infrastructure. Various types of testing techniques, used to determine the LSP from both laboratory and field studies, are critically reviewed by focusing on two key factors, namely, the boundary conditions and the saturation path. Most testing techniques are capable of reasonably simulating the stress state of a soil element behind a retaining structure by applying a fixed boundary condition in the horizontal direction and a stress boundary condition in the vertical direction. However, they are only used to determine the LSP following a simple path, which is from an initially unsaturated state to a fully saturated state. In other words, these tests fail to provide information on the variation in LSP with respect to changes in the degree of saturation, the water content or the matric suction during the infiltration process. Furthermore, the literature review suggests that a reliable model for the prediction of the LSP during the infiltration process is not available. For this reason, a model is proposed in this paper to estimate the lateral earth pressure (LEP) considering the variation in LSP behind fixed rigid retaining structures with respect to the matric suction during the infiltration process. The proposed model is simple and only requires information, which includes the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) and a limited number of soil properties. Data from one large-scale model test and two field case studies from published literature are used to illustrate and verify the proposed model. Reasonable comparisons are made between the predictions and the measured data. The proposed model will be a valuable tool for use in conventional engineering practice for the quick prediction of the increasing LEP behind retaining structures with expansive soils as backfill due to the development of LSP associated with water infiltration.