Influence of Raised Groundwater Level on the Stability of Unsaturated Soil Slopes
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 18, Issue 12
Abstract
The response of unsaturated soil slopes subjected to raised groundwater levels is generally governed by undrained shear strength. A series of unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests was conducted on reconstructed specimens of Xiashu loess with different water content. This can avoid the complexity involved with the measurement of matric suction. The Duncan-Chang hyperbolic model was modified to approximate the measured stress-strain responses. A correlation between water content and shear-strength parameters was established. The proposed model was then implemented in a finite-difference analysis program, against which two conventional calculations using the standard Mohr-Coulomb model with constant and varying soil properties with depth were compared. The analyses of an unsaturated soil slope subjected to raised groundwater levels demonstrate that soil properties should vary with water content; otherwise, an unsafe evaluation of slope stability will be obtained because the displacements of the slope may be underestimated if the dependency of water content is neglected.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 51578164 and 51878185), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (Grant 2016GXNSFGA380008), and the Ministry of Education of China through the Changjiang Scholars Program to Dr. Guoxiong Mei and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41672296) to Dr. Yanlin Zhao.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 18 • Issue 12 • December 2018
Copyright
© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 7, 2017
Accepted: Jun 11, 2018
Published online: Sep 25, 2018
Published in print: Dec 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Feb 25, 2019
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