Energy Approach to Earthquake-Induced Slope Failures and Its Implications
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 7
Abstract
So far, earthquake-induced slope instability has been evaluated by force equilibrium of soil mass in engineering practice, which cannot evaluate failure deformation once large failure occurs. An energy approach is proposed here, in which the amount of earthquake energy is evaluated in conjunction with the gravitational potential energy dissipated in slope displacement including large flow deformations. Shake table tests of dry sand slopes are carried out in which the earthquake energy used for slope failure can be successfully quantified. Measured slope displacement can be reliably evaluated by the proposed energy approach based on a rigid block model if an appropriate friction coefficient of the slope is specified. The energy approach is then applied to hypothetical slopes, indicating that even if extremely large earthquake energy is considered, slope failures with long run-out distance will not occur unless friction coefficients reduce near to or smaller than slope inclinations.
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Acknowledgments
The undergraduate students of the Civil Engineering Department in Chuo University who were involved in this research are gratefully acknowledged for their great help in conducting shaking table tests and processing the data.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133 • Issue 7 • July 2007
Pages: 828 - 840
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 1, 2006
Accepted: Jan 12, 2007
Published online: Jul 1, 2007
Published in print: Jul 2007
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