INVESTIGATION OF STRESS BEHAVIOR IN EMBANKMENT DUE TO RAINFALL INFILTRATION

Abstract

In recent years, sudden heavy rains due to climate change have increased, and there are many cases of collapse of soil structures. In particular, embankment structures are social infrastructure structures that are essential to our lives, so the damage caused by their collapse is enormous, and it is necessary to prevent this from happening. However, the factors and mechanisms leading to the collapse of embankment structures have not been sufficiently analyzed and elucidated, and elucidation is urgently needed. Therefore, in this study, we conducted an embankment model experiment focusing on rainfall and a reproduction analysis using the air-dissolved unsaturated soil/water/air-coupled finite analysis code in an attempt to understand the moisture state and stress behavior of the embankment due to rainfall. As a result, through model experiments, we were able to confirm that rainfall penetrates from the embankment crest and the slope, causing the embankment to collapse from near the toe of the slope, and it was clarified that this is the mechanism by which the embankment collapses due to rainfall. In addition, the reproduction analysis confirmed qualitative agreement with the model experiment and clarified the usefulness of this analysis code. Furthermore, the stress behavior of the embankment, which is difficult to clarify through experiments, was clarified. In this way, the internal conditions and collapse mechanisms of embankments due to rainfall were elucidated using two methods: experiment and analysis.