Heave Prediction in a Natural Unsaturated Expansive Soil Deposit Under a Lightly Loaded Structure

The soil heave over time associated with a leak in a hot-water line beneath a floor slab of a lightly loaded structure constructed on a natural unsaturated expansive soil in Regina of Saskatchewan, Canada is modelled in this paper using the Modulus of Elasticity Based Method (MEBM). The case history arises from the studies that were initiated by the Prairie Regional Station of the Division of Building Research, National Research Council in 1960s as a part of a comprehensive field study program to investigate the problems associated with construction in/on an expansive soil in the Regina area. There is a good comparison between the results from the MEBM and the published data of measurements and estimations of soil heave over time. The encouraging results of this study suggest that the MEBM is a simple and promising approach for use in conventional engineering practice by geotechnical engineers for estimation of the heave over time of expansive soils.