20.500.12556/DiRROS-21270 Numerical evaluation of suction effects and groundwater table variations on long-term pavement subgrade performance 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 sub- grades 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. flexible pavement unsaturated soil suction finite-element method fleksibilen tlak nenasičena tla sesanje metoda končnih elementov true false true MDPI Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Neznano 2025-01-21 11:55:46 2025-01-21 12:00:07 2025-05-09 08:59:21 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2024 0 0 This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability in Pavement Materials and Design; str. 1-22 iss. 21, [article no.] 9469 Vol. 16 Nov. 2024 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno apc 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2024-10-31 55 2071-1050 10.3390/su16219469 222931715 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/21/9469 1 4639defa-d7e6-11ef-ba3f-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=30203 RAZ_Karumanchi_Siva_Ram_2024.pdf RAZ_Karumanchi_Siva_Ram_2024.pdf 1 B568C0D7DBB5C2085F30EB91EB226FDB 5e2d716b23dd8f8493513f2d2b3cf58cc7b143681b23896cc0c2c3ac6706b533 db03a636-d7e6-11ef-ba3f-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=30204 Zavod za gradbeništvo Slovenije 0 0 0