Horizontal and Vertical Movements of Red Clay Highway Embankments

The paper presents results of a study of horizontal and vertical movements of five highway embankments made up of red clay (red coffee soil). The highway embankments studied ranged from 4m to 15m in height. The study also involved laboratory testing of the red soils which form these embankments. Results of laboratory tests were used to compute cracking and collapse potentials of the embankments. Results of field investigations showed embankments to suffer horizontal as well as vertical movements. It was further established that in the case of the embankments, whose bituminous pavements had showed severe longitudinal surface cracks, the cracking observed was not due to slope failure but due to moisture migration and differential settlements which resulted from low placement moisture and density conditions of the embankment during construction. The red soils were found to be highly plastic, highly susceptible to cracking and were also very likely to collapse due to flooding