The cracking and strength deterioration of expansive soil resulting from the wetting-drying cycle caused by the process of rainfall evaporation is a crucial factor in the initiation of slope instability. Understanding the impact of cracking development in expansive soil slopes on the infiltration process, and integrating it with the soil's strength deterioration for stability analysis, holds the key to addressing this issue. This study presents a stability calculation model for expansive soil slopes during the wetting-drying cycle, derived from the improved Richards' seepage model. The research findings reveal that the stratified infiltration model, which considers cracks, demonstrates better accuracy in reflecting the rainfall infiltration process compared to the traditional GA infiltration model. The case analysis confirms the significant influence of expansiveness on the stability of expansive soil slopes. Moreover, the stability analysis model derived from the stratified infiltration model exhibits a high level of agreement with the numerical simulation.
