Design of Stable Concave Slopes for Reduced Sediment Delivery
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 2
Abstract
Constructed slopes are traditionally given a planar form. However, natural slopes are more likely to be concave in cross section. In addition, laboratory and computational studies have demonstrated that concave slopes yield less sediment than planar slopes. With current autoguided construction equipment, it is now possible to construct slopes with concave profiles and a more natural appearance, yet a simple method to describe such concave slopes for a given level of mechanical stability does not exist. This article begins with an examination of concave shapes satisfying a desired degree of stability and compares results with those from the FEM and limit-equilibrium method of analysis. An erosion model is used to demonstrate that the concave slopes proposed here yield 15–40% less sediment than planar slopes with the same factor of safety. Finally, a sensitivity analysis suggests that reasonable construction deviations do not compromise the stability of typical concave slopes.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 141 • Issue 2 • February 2015
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This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Received: Jun 28, 2013
Accepted: Sep 3, 2014
Published online: Oct 7, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2015
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