Coupling Novel Soil Moisture-Suction Sensors and UAV Photogrammetry Technology to the Performance of Highway Embankments

The movement of water plays a critical role in the mechanical performance and service life of transportation infrastructure, especially for pavement subgrades and highway embankments consisting of high-plasticity, expansive soils that saturate and ultimately lead to infrastructure distress. Shallow slides along highway embankments are ubiquitous across Region 6 because long-term wetting and drying cycles considerably weaken these compacted soils. In the aftermath of heavy rains, pore-water pressures increase to a critical threshold such that a failure occurs. The implications of embankment failures range from repeated maintenance repairs to long-term road closures. A comprehensive approach to model highway embankments comprising of laboratory testing, setup, and field data collection using unmanned aerial vehicles has been proposed in this study.