Weather-driven clay cut slope behaviour in a changing climate

Long linear earthwork assets constructed in high-plasticity overconsolidated clay are known to be deteriorating due to long-term effects of wetting and drying stress cycles as a result of seasonal weather patterns. These stress cycles can lead to shallow first-time failures due to the mobilisation of post-peak strength and progressive failure. Design requirements of new earthworks and management of existing assets requires improved understanding of this critical mechanism; seasonal ratcheting. Incremental model development and validation to allow investigation of multiple inter-related strength deterioration mechanisms of cut slope behaviour in high-plasticity overconsolidated clay slopes has been presented. Initially, the mechanism of seasonal ratcheting has been considered independently and a numerical modelling approach considering unsaturated behaviour has been validated against physical modelling data. Using the validated model, the effects of slope geometry, design parameter selection and design life have been considered. Following this, an approach to allow undrained unloading of soil, stress relief, excess pore water pressure dissipation, seasonal ratcheting and progressive failure with wetting and drying boundary conditions has been considered. Hydrogeological property deterioration and the potential implications of climate change have been explored using the model. In both cases the serviceable life of cut slopes is shown to reduce significantly in the numerical analyses. Finally, a model capable of capturing hydrogeological behaviour of a real cut slope in London Clay has been developed and validated against long-term field monitored data. Using the validated model, a climate change impact assessment for the case study slope has been performed. The numerical analyses performed have indicated that seasonal ratcheting can explain shallow first-time failures in high-plasticity overconsolidated clay slopes and that the rate of deterioration of such assets will accelerate if current climate change projections are representative of future weather.