ABSTRACT
The General Directorate of Roads of the Spanish Ministry of Transports requested the Geotechnical Laboratory of CEDEX technical assistance for the study of some pathologies detected in A-33 highway in La Font de la Figuera, province of Valencia (Spain). In 2022, after six years in service, anomalous settlements, up to 10 cm, and some longitudinal cracks on the pavement on both carriageways were detected at several zones around station 85+000 of the highway, all of them located in embankment cross sections. Initially, several possible causes of the pathologies were considered: malfunction of the underground drainage of the pavement structure; presence of an abandoned railway tunnel under the embankment; and the existence of collapsible soils at the embankment foundation. An inspection visit to the area was carried out and a site investigation campaign comprising dynamic penetration tests, execution of boreholes with core recovery and installation of micrometric pipe and piezometers, and hydrogeological tests with tracers has been proposed to determine the cause of the detected pathologies. Meanwhile, measurements of ground surface movements obtained by interferometric processing of 46 high resolution radar images, taken by the Paz satellite, have been used to help analyse the cause of anomalous settlements, pointing out that the most likely cause is the existence of collapsible soils at the embankment foundation, what shall be confirmed by the results of the site investigation campaign. The paper presents the results of the study carried out so far.
