Investigation of the Dynamic Response Pattern and Instability Mechanism of a Bedding Rock Slope Subjected to Frequent Seismic Loads
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24, Issue 7
Abstract
The adverse effects of the frequent reservoir earthquakes (REs) and the severe degradation of the hydrofluctuation belt (HFB) on the long-term stability of bedding bank slope since the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) impoundment were considered fully in this paper. Under such complex conditions, the dynamic response pattern and instability mechanism of typical bank slopes were investigated systematically by using a method of combining field survey, laboratory shaking table (ST) model test, and Universal Distinct Element Code (UDEC) numerical exploration. The research shows that the degradation forms of the HFB of typical bank slopes in the key field survey of the TGRA can be arranged into four types: erosion (denudation), corrosion (suffosion), avalanche (collapse), and slip (flow). The dynamic response of slope shows obvious characteristics of “surface effect” and “elevation effect,” and the cumulative displacement (CD), damping ratio (DR) and natural frequency (NF) of slopes show a trend of gradually increasing, and increasing and decreasing, respectively. Meanwhile, the “S–type” cubic function and “Steep rise type” exponential function can be used to characterize the cumulative damage degree (CDG) of slope at the excitation stages of microseisms—small seisms and strong seisms, respectively. Subsequently, the dynamic evolvement process for cumulative damage and unstable failure of slope considering the impact of degradation of rock mass in the HFB was obtained, and there are good agreement between the model test and numerical exploration results. Furthermore, fully considering the influence of slope height (SH), slope angle (SA), thickness of bedding plane (TBP), dip angle of bedding plane (DABP), dynamic load amplitude (DLA), dynamic load frequency (DLF), height of water level of the HFB (HWHB), degradation range of the HFB (DRHB), and degradation shape of the HFB (DSHB), the CD of slope subjected to continuous excitation of multiple seismic loads increases in the form of exponential function, the dynamic stability coefficient (DSC) of slope decreases slowly first and then drops sharply, and the response degree of slope deformation and sliding velocity is obviously different. Especially, the sensitivity level of every preceding factor to the dynamic stability of slope based on the orthogonal analysis method (OAM) is in the order of DLA > DRHB > SA > SH > DLF > HWHB > DSHB > DABP > TBP.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this study from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2023M730432), the Special Funding for Chongqing Postdoctoral Research Project (Grant Nos. 2022CQBSHTB1010, 2022CQBSHTB2061), the Chongqing Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Nos. CSTB2023NSCQ-BHX0223, CSTB2022NSCQ-BHX0738), the Science and Technology Research Program Project of the Chongqing Education Commission (Grant No. KJQN202300744), the Open Foundation of the Key Laboratory of Hydraulic and Waterway Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Chongqing Jiaotong University (Grant No. SLK2023A03), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Chongqing Jiaotong University (Grant No. 22JDKJC-A008), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41972266), and the Chongqing Technology Innovation and Application Development Project (Grant No. CSTB2022TIAD-GPX0045). The authors also gratefully thank Loujain Suliman, a doctor specializing in rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering, for her efforts in improving the linguistic quality of this paper.
Author contributions: Bin Xu, Xinrong Liu, Yingkun Xie and Junhui Huang conducted the field survey. Bin Xu, Xinrong Liu and Xiaohan Zhou designed the model test. Bin Xu, Yafeng Han, Zhiyun Deng and Junhui Huang performed the model test. Bin Xu and Junhui Huang carried out the numerical exploration. Bin Xu, Xinrong Liu and Xiaohan Zhou analyzed the data. Bin Xu and Xiaohan Zhou wrote this paper. Yue Liang, Ping Cai and Yiliang Tu polished the grammar of this paper.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24 • Issue 7 • July 2024
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© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 1, 2023
Accepted: Jan 2, 2024
Published online: Apr 18, 2024
Published in print: Jul 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Sep 18, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Chemical degradation
- Chemical processes
- Chemistry
- Continuum mechanics
- Dynamic loads
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Geomechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Models (by type)
- Numerical models
- Seismic loads
- Seismic tests
- Slope stability
- Slopes
- Solid mechanics
- Structural dynamics
- Tests (by type)
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