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Rapid condition assessment of earthwork assets

Rapid condition assessment of earthwork assets
Rapid condition assessment of earthwork assets
The UK has many old earth embankments, dams and cuttings, some more than 200 years old, that are still integral to our national infrastructure. These assets (earthworks) are crucial in transportation, water transport and storage, and flood prevention. Although they are often assumed to be stable, they gradually change over time through repeated use and seasonal or weather driven cyclic forcing. This cyclical forcing slowly degrades these assets through processes operating from the material scale to the slope scale, reducing their reliability and performance (Stirling et al., 2021). The changing climate is accelerating this deterioration. Anthropogenic climate change is causing more frequent and larger extreme weather events with heavier rainfall, longer droughts and rising temperatures. This will profoundly impact assets in two ways: 1) the likelihood of failure will increase as assets experience environmental extremes they were not designed for and have never experienced; 2) the deterioration rate will likely increase as they are exposed to more intense seasonal cycling (e.g. wetting and drying), reducing the current performance and operational life (Huang et al., 2023; Postill et al., 2021).

Maintaining the thousands of kilometres of assets in the UK poses a challenge for asset owners (e.g., Environment Agency, Network Rail and National Highways), who, with their finite resources and carbon net zero targets, must prioritise sites for inspection, monitoring and remediation. Information on current asset conditions is needed to prioritise assets for monitoring and remediation. Identifying, developing and employing state-of-the-art and novel approaches to asset condition assessment has been a key consideration of the EPSRC funded ACHILLES project (Blake et al., 2022). Here, a Rapid Asset Condition Assessment (RACA) framework is introduced to aid the assessment of assets and to guide the collection of new information to refine condition estimates. The RACA framework will enable improved prioritisation of maintenance and remediation for individual assets and is designed to benefit earthwork owners, consultants and contractors responsible for managing and maintaining geotechnical assets.
0017-4653
28-33
White, Adrian
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Chambers, Jonathan
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Briggs, Kevin M.
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Blake, Anthony P.
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Stirling, Ross
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Whitley, James
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Uhlemann, Sebastian
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Wilkinson, Paul
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Smethurst, Joel
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Boyd, Jimmy
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Glendinning, Stephanie
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White, Adrian
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Chambers, Jonathan
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Briggs, Kevin M.
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Blake, Anthony P.
e0438bea-cfc4-4373-b100-8b9768ddc56f
Stirling, Ross
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Whitley, James
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Uhlemann, Sebastian
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Wilkinson, Paul
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Smethurst, Joel
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Boyd, Jimmy
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Glendinning, Stephanie
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White, Adrian, Chambers, Jonathan, Briggs, Kevin M., Blake, Anthony P., Stirling, Ross, Whitley, James, Uhlemann, Sebastian, Wilkinson, Paul, Smethurst, Joel, Boyd, Jimmy and Glendinning, Stephanie (2024) Rapid condition assessment of earthwork assets. Ground Engineering, 2024 (June), 28-33.

Record type: Article

Abstract

The UK has many old earth embankments, dams and cuttings, some more than 200 years old, that are still integral to our national infrastructure. These assets (earthworks) are crucial in transportation, water transport and storage, and flood prevention. Although they are often assumed to be stable, they gradually change over time through repeated use and seasonal or weather driven cyclic forcing. This cyclical forcing slowly degrades these assets through processes operating from the material scale to the slope scale, reducing their reliability and performance (Stirling et al., 2021). The changing climate is accelerating this deterioration. Anthropogenic climate change is causing more frequent and larger extreme weather events with heavier rainfall, longer droughts and rising temperatures. This will profoundly impact assets in two ways: 1) the likelihood of failure will increase as assets experience environmental extremes they were not designed for and have never experienced; 2) the deterioration rate will likely increase as they are exposed to more intense seasonal cycling (e.g. wetting and drying), reducing the current performance and operational life (Huang et al., 2023; Postill et al., 2021).

Maintaining the thousands of kilometres of assets in the UK poses a challenge for asset owners (e.g., Environment Agency, Network Rail and National Highways), who, with their finite resources and carbon net zero targets, must prioritise sites for inspection, monitoring and remediation. Information on current asset conditions is needed to prioritise assets for monitoring and remediation. Identifying, developing and employing state-of-the-art and novel approaches to asset condition assessment has been a key consideration of the EPSRC funded ACHILLES project (Blake et al., 2022). Here, a Rapid Asset Condition Assessment (RACA) framework is introduced to aid the assessment of assets and to guide the collection of new information to refine condition estimates. The RACA framework will enable improved prioritisation of maintenance and remediation for individual assets and is designed to benefit earthwork owners, consultants and contractors responsible for managing and maintaining geotechnical assets.

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Ground Engineering article Submitted - Author's Original
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White et al (2024) RACA Ground Engineering - Version of Record
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More information

Submitted date: 22 March 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 23 May 2024

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 488630
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/488630
ISSN: 0017-4653
PURE UUID: 318a351b-2350-4952-aa38-94f1a148477d
ORCID for Joel Smethurst: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8175-985X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 27 Mar 2024 17:56
Last modified: 12 Aug 2024 01:36

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Contributors

Author: Adrian White
Author: Jonathan Chambers
Author: Kevin M. Briggs
Author: Ross Stirling
Author: James Whitley
Author: Sebastian Uhlemann
Author: Paul Wilkinson
Author: Joel Smethurst ORCID iD
Author: Jimmy Boyd
Author: Stephanie Glendinning

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