Numerical Investigation of Rainfall-Induced Shear Crack Propagation in Railway Embankment Slopes

Jiye Chen^1,*, Min Fu², Sudath Loku-Pathirage³, Bing Leng⁴
1 School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
2 College of Mechanical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
3 Department of Earth Resource Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
4 College of Civil Engineering and Transportation, Beihua University, Jilin, China
* Corresponding Author: Jiye Chen. Email: email
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advances in Computational Fracture Mechanics: Theories, Techniques, and Applications)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2026.073689

Received 23 September 2025; Accepted 26 February 2026; Published online 13 March 2026

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Abstract

Slope failures, particularly in railway embankments during intense rainfall, are a major cause of economic damage and humanitarian loss. To forecast how shear cracks develop in slopes under heavy precipitation, we present a novel modeling framework: the Extended Cohesive Damage Element enhanced by soil moisture (SMECDE). The method first translates forecasted rainfall into soil moisture levels via an established correspondence. Then, recognizing that rainfall infiltration lowers soil cohesion—particularly at varying depths—we introduce a Soil Moisture Decoherence Model (SMDM) based on experimental data, which quantifies how cohesion degrades with moisture and how depth affects this process. By embedding SMDM within the ECDE technique, we investigate how shear fractures propagate under different moisture conditions throughout the slope profile. We apply SMECDE to a real railway embankment case to identify critical moisture thresholds and crack growth patterns. Validation is performed by comparing predictions against field measurements and weather station records, and further checked through simulations of large-scale plastic deformation in ABAQUS.

Keywords

Soil moisture; extended cohesive damage element method; railway slope shear crack propagation; soil moisture-rainfall intensity correlation; soil moisture decohesion model

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Numerical Investigation of Rainfall-Induced Shear Crack Propagation in Railway Embankment Slopes

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