MarTREC Project Report for Effect of Permeability Variation of Expansive Yazoo Clay at the Maritime and Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure in Mississippi

The existence of Yazoo clay soil in Mississippi frequently causes distress to the pavement and cause deformation at the slopes in highways and levees, which are a critical component in Maritime and multimodal transportation infrastructure. Each year, fixing the pavement requires a significant maintenance budget of MDOT. Also, the infiltration of the rainwater in the highway and levee slopes leads to landslides, which require millions of maintenance dollars each year. Due to the shrinkage and swelling behavior of the Yazoo clay, the hydraulic conductivity varies over the different seasons and has higher vertical permeability during the dry season. With high vertical permeability, the rainwater can easily percolate in the pavement subgrade and slopes, which accelerates the failure. However, a limited study is available on the change in hydraulic permeability of Yazoo clay soil. The current study investigates the change in unsaturated vertical and horizontal permeability and its effect on the maritime and multimodal infrastructures, especially on the pavement and slopes of highway embankment and levees. The details are presented in the final report