This work aims at showing how suction influences the resilient modulus of four soils commonly used as pavement subgrades in Southern Brazil. A reddish lateritic clay, used as subgrade of the experimental sections built in the Pavement Research and Testing Facility of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, is included. The soils were initially compacted at the optimum moisture content and then submitted to wetting or drying processes. Triaxial compression tests with repeated loading were carried out and, by using the characteristic curve, it was possible to obtain relationships between the resilient modulus and suction for the studied soils. The results permit to state that subgrade soils suction remarkably affect the materials elastic deformability. Therefore, soils suction must be taken into account in order to understand their resilient behaviours. It is possible to relate the resilient modulus to soil suction by using the relationship between suction and moisture content, and to estiamte the modulus variation due to environmental changes.
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