Effects of Soil Strength Nonlinearity on Slip Surfaces of Homogeneous Slopes
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21, Issue 1
Abstract
Slope slip surface plays a vital role in the prevention and control of landslide hazards. For homogeneous soil slopes, a three-dimensional (3D) limit analysis method was used to analyze the slope critical slip surfaces with a nonlinear strength envelope. The critical slip surfaces can be obtained once the least upper bounds on slope stability were calculated by using a numerical optimization procedure. For various clay slopes, some comparisons of critical slip surfaces associated with linear and nonlinear strength criteria were made to evaluate the effects of soil strength nonlinearity on slip surfaces. For slopes with a nonlinear criterion, the critical slip surface tends to be shallower gradually as the slope inclination increases, which is opposite to that for slopes with a linear strength criterion. Besides, the influences of width constraint on the critical slip surfaces associated with two strength criteria become more significant for steeper slopes. Compared with the solutions for slopes with the linear strength criterion, 3D effects on slope slip surfaces will be more remarkable for slopes considering soil strength nonlinearity.
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Acknowledgments
This work was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51708310 and 41630638) and Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (Grant No. ZR2017BEE066).
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21 • Issue 1 • January 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 18, 2019
Accepted: Aug 23, 2020
Published online: Oct 23, 2020
Published in print: Jan 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Mar 23, 2021
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