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The soil movement information over time is required for the design of foundations placed in expansive soils. This information is also helpful for the assessment of pre-wetting and controlled wetting mitigation alternatives for expansive soils. Several researchers during the past fifteen years have proposed different methods for the prediction of the soil movements over time. The available methods can be categorised into (i) consolidation theory-based methods, (ii) water content-based methods, and (iii) suction-based methods. In this paper, a state-of-the-art of the prediction methods is succinctly summarized. The methods are critically reviewed in terms of their predictive capacity along with their strengths and limitations. The review highlights the need for prediction methods that are conceptually simple yet efficient for use in conventional engineering practice for different types of expansive soils.

A semi-empirical model was proposed by Vanapalli and Oh (2010) for predicting the variation of the modulus of elasticity with respect to matric suction for soils with plasticity index I p values lower than 16%. This model has been extended in this paper to predict the modulus of elasticity of unsaturated expansive soils. The information required for using the model include the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) and the modulus of elasticity of soil under saturated condition along with two fitting parameters. Experimental data of triaxial tests for three different expansive soils from the literature were used to examine the validity of the model. The results of the study suggest that the model can reasonably predict the modulus of elasticity of unsaturated expansive soils. The study results are encouraging in reliably using the modulus of elasticity based method proposed by Adem and Vanapalli (2013) for estimation of the volume change behavior of expansive soils.

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