Project Grant 2332069

This Project Grant award, valued at $349,428, was awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Engineering (CFDA 47.041) federal grant program. The award supports collaborative research focused on understanding the risk of increased catastrophic landslides of historically stable or slowly creeping natural soil slopes due to the presence of thermally sensitive soil materials that exhibit significant changes in strength and stiffness in response to temperature changes. The central hypothesis is that thermomechanical softening is the dominant mechanism triggering deep-seated slope movements in thermally sensitive slopes at higher temperatures. The research approach involves thermal triaxial tests and centrifuge experiments on reduced-scale slopes of thermally sensitive materials to bridge the gap between experimental observations and field slope failures. The results will inform and validate predictive, thermally sensitive visco-plastic constitutive models to assess the relative importance of deformation and failure mechanisms in thermally sensitive soil slopes. This research is intended to help improve the resiliency of natural soil slopes to warming climates. No sub-awards are planned under this grant.