Spatial–Temporal Variation of Soil Sliding Probability in Cohesive Slopes with Spatially Variable Soils
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21, Issue 3
Abstract
Landslide is a common and severe geohazard that may pose significant risk to adjacent structures such as buildings and buried pipelines. Identification of the failure slip surface is critical for the assessment and management of landslide risk on adjacent structures since the structures are adversely affected by large deformation of soil when landslides occur and they are not located far away from the failure slip surface and sliding soil mass. Previous studies showed that the location of the failure slip surface may change during the failure process of a slope, but the failure slip surface identified by the commonly used limit equilibrium method (LEM) only corresponds to the initiation of slope failure. In addition, soil properties vary spatially, and such variability may have a significant influence on the location or spatial distribution of the failure slip surface. In this study, a sliding probability is proposed for a soil element within a slope, and the spatial–temporal variation in the sliding probability within a cohesive slope is explored to investigate evolution of the spatial distribution of the failure slip surface during the entire process of a landslide. The investigation is performed using Monte Carlo simulations integrated with smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The soil sliding probability at each location within a slope is estimated at each stage of the failure process and used subsequently in the assessment and management of landslide risk on adjacent structures.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7005040) and a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 51778313). The financial supports are gratefully acknowledged.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21 • Issue 3 • March 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 9, 2020
Accepted: Sep 30, 2020
Published online: Dec 18, 2020
Published in print: Mar 1, 2021
Discussion open until: May 18, 2021
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