Abstract
The major problem of unsaturated slope is the variation of their volumetric water content which is an important factor in the variation of mechanical parameters of soils into the subsurface. It can also influence the soil shear strength; consequently several methods were proposed to improve the unsaturated slope stability including the concrete lozenges technique. It is a new technique used to protect slopes. It constituted a non-continuous mesh mask on the slop, having the effect of collecting and transporting runoff water on the slope. Using the finite element method, the objective of this paper was to study both how the value of soil volumetric water content and the safety factor changed by the use of this new technique. Indeed, the safety factor is <1 for the shallow soil and increases with depth. Simulation and calculation results demonstrated that the proposed technique is capable of making the amount of soil masse affected, less than 1 m.
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El Bouanani, L., Baba, K., Ouadif, L. (2019). Use of the Method of Concrete Lozenges to Strengthening the Slopes Stability: Assessment of the Safety Factor by the Finite Element Method. In: Hemeda, S., Bouassida, M. (eds) Contemporary Issues in Soil Mechanics. GeoMEast 2018. Sustainable Civil Infrastructures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01941-9_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01941-9_10
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