IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i21p9469-d1511135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Numerical Evaluation of Suction Effects and Groundwater Table Variations on Long-Term Pavement Subgrade Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Siva Ram Karumanchi

    (Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG), 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia)

  • Anirban Mandal

    (Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur 440010, India)

  • Stanislav Lenart

    (Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG), 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Abstract

Over the past few decades, flexible pavements across the globe have seen a significant reduction in their service life due to climate changes. The flexible pavements with unsaturated subgrades undergo volumetric changes during the drying and wetting phases, affecting their long-term deformation behavior. These phases cause significant variations in matric suction and groundwater table depth. This study employs a coupled pore pressure-deformation analysis on flexible pavements to investigate the impact of groundwater table depth and suction variations in unsaturated subgrades. Finite-element simulations using the Abaqus and developed USDFLD code were validated against literature data. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by varying the suctions in subgrades during drying and subsequent wetting to evaluate the groundwater table depth. Furthermore, under heavy cyclic wheel loading, pavement-deformation analysis was conducted to investigate the influence of subgrade suction. The findings demonstrate that, after an initial drying phase at 5000 kPa suction, wetting over 180 days caused the groundwater level to rise from 5.45 m beneath the subgrade to the surface. This led to a 98% increase in surface-vertical deformations due to cyclic wheel loading after 180 days of wetting compared to the deformations during the drying phase at the same suction level. This assessment of groundwater-depth variations and long-term deformation behavior with the impact of suction improves the design and sustainability of flexible pavements.

Suggested Citation

  • Siva Ram Karumanchi & Anirban Mandal & Stanislav Lenart, 2024. "Numerical Evaluation of Suction Effects and Groundwater Table Variations on Long-Term Pavement Subgrade Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-22, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:21:p:9469-:d:1511135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/21/9469/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/21/9469/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manish Kumar & Kimitoshi Hayano, 2024. "Variation of the Groundwater Table within Indian Railway Embankments in Consideration of Climate Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-22, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:21:p:9469-:d:1511135. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.