Reliability of Deteriorating Slopes
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 131, Issue 5
Abstract
The effect of deterioration on the reliability of slopes of various service periods has seldom been considered explicitly in the current reliability approach in slope engineering. Constant annual failure probabilities, that are commonly used in practice to evaluate reliability of a slope over a given expected service period, may not be capable of capturing the deteriorating characteristics of slopes. This paper presents a procedure to model probabilistically the deteriorating effect on the failure probability with time. Past performance of geotechnical systems of similar nature is systematically analyzed to evaluate the failure probabilities for systems of different ages and for different expected service periods. The method was applied to the stability performance of soil cut slopes in Hong Kong. Through this exercise, the reliability of slopes of different ages for different future service periods can be reasonably estimated. As such, a planner can benchmark a design standard and plan a slope improvement program in a more effective and defensible way.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgment
The writers would like to acknowledge the support of the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong through Grants No. HKUST6252/00E and HKUST6294/04E. This paper is published with the permission of the Head of the Geotechnical Engineering Office and the Director of Civil Engineering and Development, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
References
Ang, A. H.-S., and Tang, W. H. (1975). Probability concepts in engineering planning and design, Vol. I, Wiley, New York.
Ang, A. H.-S., and Tang, W. H. (1984). Probability concepts in engineering planning and design, Vol. II, Wiley, New York.
Benjamin, J. R., and Cornell, C. A. (1970). Probability, statistics, and decision for civil engineers, McGraw–Hill, New York.
Brand, E. W. (1985). “Predicting the performance of residual soil slopes.” Proc., 11th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 5, San Francisco, 2541–2578.
Cheung, W. M., Shiu, Y. K., and Pang, P. L. R. (2001). “Assessment of global landslide risk posed by old man-made slopes in Hong Kong.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Landslides—Causes, Impacts and Countermeasures, Davos, Switzerland, 497–505.
Christian, J. T., Ladd, C. C., and Baecher, G. B. (1994). “Reliability applied to slope stability analysis.” J. Geotech. Eng., 120(12), 2180–2207.
Hollander, M., and Proschan, F. (1979). “Testing to determine the underlying distribution using randomly censored data.” Biometrics, 35, 393–401.
Kaplan, E. L., and Meier, P. (1958). “Non-parametric estimation from incomplete observations.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 53, 457–481.
Lacasse, S., and Nadim, F. (1998). “Risk and reliability in geotechnical engineering.” Proc., 4th Int. Conf. on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering, St. Louis, 1172–1192.
Li, K. S., and Lumb, P. (1987). “Probabilistic design of slopes.” Can. Geotech. J., 24, 520–535.
Nelson, W. (1972). “Theory and applications of hazard plotting for censored failure data.” Technometrics, 14, 945–966.
Vanmarcke, E. H. (1977). “Reliability of earth slopes.” J. Geotech. Eng. Div., Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 103(11), 1247–1265.
Wong, C. K. L. (1998). “The new priority classification systems for slopes and retaining walls.” GEO Rep. No. 68, Geotechnical Engineering Office, Hong Kong SAR Government, Hong Kong.
Wong, H. N., Ho, K. K. S., Pun, W. K., and Pang, P. L. R. (1998). “Observations from some landslide studies in Hong Kong.” Slope engineering in Hong Kong, Li, Kay, and Ho, eds., Hong Kong, 277–286.
Wu, T. H., and Kraft, L. M., Jr. (1970). “Safety analysis of slopes.” J. Soil Mech. Found. Div., 96(2), 609–630.
Yucemen, M. S., and Tang, W. H. (1975). “Long-term stability of soil slopes—a reliability approach.” Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. on Applications of Statistics and Probability to Soil and Structural Engineering, Aachen, Germany, 215–230.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 30, 2003
Accepted: Aug 18, 2004
Published online: May 1, 2005
Published in print: May 2005
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.