Numerical analysis of pavement structure on expansive subgrade stabilized with surcharge pressure
Adel Djellali, Rachida Malaoui, Zied Benghazi, Debojit Sarker, Behrooz Saghafi
Abstract. Soils swell upon wetting and shrink when drying. This behavior can sustain damage to structures, particularly, light buildings and roads. The phenomenon is exciting to be researched, how far the effect of water contents is towards the behavior of free swelling of expansive soils. The aim study of this investigation is to discuss the findings on analysis results of pavement structure constructed on a relatively expansive material stabilized by an application of surcharge pressure. Samples were taken to the laboratory from the subgrade of a deteriorated road. The soils were classified as medium plasticity with medium to high expansion potential. The free swell oedometer test indicated a volumetric strain v = 0.12 % with a swelling pressure of 520 kPa. An adequate surcharge pressure was used according to the procedure described in the paper to stabilize the deformations induced by the subgrade. The load-displacement behavior of expansive subgrade soil is studied using the Software PLAXIS 3D. After simulation, it was observed that the swelling deformations were considerably reduced by 263% without any cracks in the pavement.
Keywords
Flexible Pavements, Expansive Subgrades, Soil Stabilization, Surcharge Pressure, Finite Element Method
Published online 2/25/2025, 7 pages
Copyright © 2025 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Adel Djellali, Rachida Malaoui, Zied Benghazi, Debojit Sarker, Behrooz Saghafi, Numerical analysis of pavement structure on expansive subgrade stabilized with surcharge pressure, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 48, pp 961-967, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644903414-104
The article was published as article 104 of the book Civil and Environmental Engineering for Resilient, Smart and Sustainable Solutions
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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