Prof. David Toll, co-director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) at Durham University, is co-author of “A simple method to determine soil–water retention curves of compacted active clays” published in Transportation Geotechnics.
A new article has been published in the journal Transportation Geotechnics by Sofia Dias (Engineering, Durham), Paul Hughes (Engineering, Durham), David Toll (Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, Durham, IHRR Co-Director), and Stephanie Glendinning (Newcastle University).
The article relates to a simple method to determine soil-water retention curves, a key set of information needed to model water flux in earthworks exposed to weather cycles. Earthworks provide the underpinning for our transportation infrastructure (railways and roads). The paper is an output from the EPSRC-funded ACHILLES project.
The ACHILLES project has identified that weather cycles (wetting and drying) induce a long-term loss of strength that can result in deterioration of clay earthworks, potentially leading to slope failures (landslides). Therefore the ability to understand and model the responses of these clays to weather events is a key aspect of ensuring resilience of transportation infrastructure. The article relates to IHRR's research in climate resilience.
Dias, A. S., Hughes, P. N., Toll, D. G., & Glendinning, S. (2023). A simple method to determine soil–water retention curves of compacted active clays. Transportation Geotechnics, 43, 101138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trgeo.2023.101138
/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/research-/research-institutes/institute-of-hazard-risk-and-resilience/43875.jpg)