Fig. 19

The evolution of the saturation/absolute humidity and the aperture/displacements of the crack are given here over a time period of 3 years. Measurements are presented in the upper picture, simulation results in the lower picture. Both result types indicate a seasonal behaviour as well as a long-term influenced trend of the crack. The seasonally affected behaviour is characterized by opening of the crack due to desaturation of the claystone in the vicinity of the crack, and closure of the crack due to resaturation in the vicinity of the crack. The long-term trend is characterized by closure of the crack in combination with the desaturation of the nearfield of the niche. The presented results are only phenomenological results—due to the simplicity of the numerical model quantitative comparisons are not yet possible