Soil erosion caused by highway construction in expansive soils districts and its prevention measures

Abstract

Because of special geological engineering characteristics of expansive soil, cut slopes and embankments of expansive soils used to be bound to damage and slide. According to Chinese Specifications for Design of Highway Subgrades, it is not appropriate to fill embankment with expansive soils, so replacing expansive soils by non-expansive materials is usually adopted, as a result serious soil erosions and damages to environments are caused frequently by highway construction in expansive soils districts. Taking Guangxi Nanning-Youyi Guan Expressway as an example, this paper analyses the influence and damages to ecological environment in the construction period of Ningming expansive soil section and introduces scientific researches and technical innovation carried out by the research group of Changsha University of Science and Technology, and how to solve the difficult problem of directly building embankment with expansive soils and develop a new environmental protection technology for stabilizing cut slopes of expansive soils. It is clearly suggested that the geological disaster problem of soil erosion caused by highway construction in expansive soils areas can only be solved by adopting effective engineering treating measures.© 2008 Science Press Beijing and Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg Geotechnical Engineering for Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation.