Coupled Geotechnical-Hydrological Analysis of Earth Slopes Subjected to Different Hydrological Loadings Using Finite Element Model
Publication: Geo-Extreme 2021
ABSTRACT
The stability of earth slopes subjected to extreme hydrological events such as infiltration, flooding, and evapotranspiration was investigated using a coupled Geotechnical-Hydrological finite element software, PLAXIS 2D. The site-specific parameters were collected for a site in Levelland, Texas, and used as the study area. The effects of the individual and simultaneous occurrence of infiltration, flooding, and evapotranspiration were investigated. The results show that the FoS against slope failure reduced with the flooding and infiltration and increased with the evapotranspiration. The FoS reduced by 62% at the end of the simultaneous occurrence of infiltration and flooding, leading to the failure of a 2H:1V slope. In the case of a 3H:1V slope, the FoS reduced by 69.4% at the end of the simultaneous occurrence of infiltration and flooding and increased by 57.4% at the end of evapotranspiration. The study concluded that extreme infiltration, flooding, and evapotranspiration could provoke slope instability and massive mass movements of the slope.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Cho, S., and Lee, S. (2001). “Instability of unsaturated soil slopes due to infiltration”. Computers and Geotechnics, 28(3), 185–208.
Gofar, N., and Rahardjo, H. (2017). “Saturated and unsaturated stability analysis of slope subjected to rainfall infiltration”. MATEC Web of Conferences, 101, 05004.
Gonzalez, O. E. (2009). Geotechnical investigation - proposed new rail and roads. Amarillo Testing and Engineering, Inc., Levelland, TX.
Hamdhan, I., and Schweiger, H. (2013). “Finite Element Method–Based Analysis of an Unsaturated Soil Slope Subjected to Rainfall Infiltration”. International Journal of Geomechanics, 13(5), 653–658.
Hammouri, N., Malkawi, A., and Yamin, M. (2008). “Stability analysis of slopes using the finite element method and limiting equilibrium approach”. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, 67(4), 471–478.
Hamon, W. R. (1961). “Estimating Potential Evapotranspiration.” Journal of the Hydraulics Division, 87(3), 107–120.
Li, Z., Ye, W., Marence, M., and Bricker, J. (2018). “Unsteady Seepage Behavior of an Earthfill Dam During Drought-Flood Cycles”. Geosciences, 9(1), 17.
PLAXIS. (2019), PLAXIS 2D reference manual.
Schaap, M. G. (2000). “Rosetta Version 1.2.”. U.S Salinity Laboratory ARS-USDA, Riverside, CA.
Tsaparas, I., Rahardjo, H., Toll, D., and Leong, E. (2002). “Controlling parameters for rainfall-induced landslides”. Computers and Geotechnics, 29(1), 1–27.
van Genuchten, M. T. (1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils”. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J, 44, 892–898.
Vickneswaran, T., and Ravichandran, N. (2020). “Multi Hazard Analysis of Earth Slopes Using Coupled Geotechnical-Hydrological Finite Element Model”. In Geo-Congress. Minneapolis.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Extreme 2021
Pages: 225 - 235
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Nov 4, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.