Evaluation of the Performance of Waterproof Perimeter Barriers-Numerical and Physical Models

Collapsible soils cover a great part of Cordoba city in Argentina. Loessian soil is formed by silt and sand particles with clay bridges, generating macropores susceptible to collapse upon wetting under load. Those structures that are superficially supported on this type of soils are susceptible of suffering damage because of soil wetting. Some actions can be taken to prevent the effect of this phenomenon, such as trays for pipes, storm drains, deeper foundations and perimetral sidewalks. At present, there is no literature about the design or hydraulic behavior of perimetral sidewalks. In this paper different types of barriers are going to be implemented in numerical and physical models. The purpose is to analyze and evaluate the barriers performance to avoid supporting soil wetting and settlement of foundations due to soil collapse. In this sense, a shallow foundation prototype was constructed and different perimetral barriers were materialized. A design rainfall was applied over the model. Simultaneously, this prototype was implemented in a finite element software to validate numerical results with physical ones. The characterization of the materials that constitute the proposed barriers and foundation soil are carried out to the numerical models. Obtained results allow making the evaluation of performance of the different implemented barriers validating the numerical model results and making some recommendations for the proper design of waterproof perimeter barriers.