Soil-Slope Stability considering Effect of Soil-Strength Nonlinearity
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 19, Issue 3
Abstract
To estimate the factor of safety of soil slopes, the discretization technique is widely used to generate the critical slip surface under the linear Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. However, the strength envelope of almost all soils has the nature of nonlinearity. This study develops a novel approach to calculate the factor of safety of soil slopes when the soil strength follows the nonlinear yield criterion. First, the numerical simulation is used to obtain the magnitude and the coordinate of minor principal stress. Then, the equivalent strength parameters are calculated by combining with the nonlinear failure criterion. Finally, slip surface is generated by the discretization technique and the factor of safety is derived on the basis of the upper bound theorem. The elastic stress analysis method of numerical simulation is used to obtain the stress distribution, and its validity is demonstrated by comparing the results derived from the elastic stress analysis and those from the elastic-plastic stress analysis. To further show the validity of the proposed method, the presented results are compared with those using GEOSLOPE software, which is a limit equilibrium method, and with those of previously published results. Based on the comparisons, the proposed method is an effective technique to calculate the factor of safety of soil slope under the condition of nonlinear failure criterion. The examples indicate that the proposed method has potential applicability in obtaining the stability of slope in layered soils.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support was received from the Doctorial Innovation Foundation of Central South University (2016zzts062) for the preparation of this paper. This financial support is gratefully acknowledged.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 19 • Issue 3 • March 2019
Copyright
© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 3, 2018
Accepted: Aug 30, 2018
Published online: Dec 26, 2018
Published in print: Mar 1, 2019
Discussion open until: May 26, 2019
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