Observations show that many soils in linear geotechnical infrastructure including embankments and cuttings undergo seasonal volume changes, and different studies confirm that this is due to cycles in climatic and hydrological conditions. These cycles can give rise to progressive failure of the soil mass, which in turn may lead to deterioration of performance and ultimately slope failure. It is expected that the magnitude of the seasonal cycles of pore pressure will be increased by more extreme and more frequent events of wet and dry periods predicted by future climate scenarios. In this paper, numerical modelling has been undertaken to simulate a continuous time series pore water pressure within a representative cutting in London Clay. The approach uses synthetic control and future climate scenarios from a weather generator to investigate the potential impacts of climate change on cutting stability. Surface pore water pressures are obtained by a hydrological model, which are then applied to a coupled fluid-mechanical model. These models are able to capture the significant soil–vegetation–atmospheric interaction processes allowing the induced unsaturated hydro-mechanical response to be investigated. The chosen hydraulic conductivity variables in the model are shown to affect the total magnitude of pore pressure fluctuation and hence the rate of progressive failure. The results demonstrate for the first time that higher total magnitude of annual variation in pore pressures caused by future climate scenarios can have a significant effect on deformations in cuttings. This in turn leads to increased rates of deterioration and reduces time to failure.

中文翻译：

---

气候变化导致的基础设施砍伐恶化

观测表明，线性岩土基础设施中的许多土壤（包括路堤和and石）都经历了季节性的体积变化，不同的研究证实这是由于气候和水文条件的循环引起的。这些循环会引起土壤质量的逐步破坏，进而可能导致性能下降，最终导致边坡破坏。可以预料，未来气候情景预测的潮湿和干燥期的更加极端和频繁的事件将增加孔隙压力的季节性周期的幅度。在本文中，已经进行了数值建模，以模拟伦敦黏土中一个典型切割区内的连续时间序列孔隙水压力。该方法使用综合控制和来自气象发生器的未来气候情景来研究气候变化对采伐稳定性的潜在影响。表面孔隙水压力是通过水文模型获得的，然后将其应用于耦合的流体力学模型。这些模型能够捕获重要的土壤－植被－大气相互作用过程，从而可以研究引起的非饱和流体力学响应。在模型中选择的水力传导率变量显示出会影响孔隙压力波动的总大小，从而影响逐步破坏的速度。结果首次表明，由未来气候情景引起的孔隙压力年变化的总幅度较大，会对插条的变形产生重大影响。