Abstract:Unsaturated soil is often involved in geotechnical engineering. Its behavior is strongly affected by the interaction of soil and atmosphere. When climatic conditions change,the temperature,water content and suction of soil ground will change. An experimental embankment was constructed in Rouen,France,to study the embankment behavior under climatic effects. Based on the work of coupled soil-atmosphere modeling,the changes in temperature,volumetric water content and suction at central axis have been simulated from the meteorological data measured in the field. Comparison between the measurements and simulations shows the relevance of the adopted method,providing that suitable boundary conditions and soil parameters are taken into consideration. Moreover,both the simulation results and field monitoring results show that climatic effects are limited to a shallow depth,which are resulted from the low permeability(<10-8 m/s of the compacted fill.