Stability charts for wet conical deposits

conclusion

Presented are results of a 3-D limit-equilibrium stability analysis of wet conical deposits. A simplified methodology to include the effect of increased pore pressures, resulting from a brief and heavy rainfall, is suggested. The results, condensed into charts, enable one to estimate the factor of safety of a conical heap. Furthermore, one can predict also the volume of potential failure and thus assess its cost. knowledge of both factor of safety and cost of potential failure may lead towards a more rational design as compared to knowledge of the safety factor alone.

The outlined 3-D procedure can be extended to deal with earthquake stability via the conventional pseudo-static approach and the proper modification of the moment equilibrium equation. Moreover, if the pore-pressure distriution in a specific case is known, one can use the dimensional algorithm (i.e., Equation 4) together with a general numerical procedure to assess the safety of that problem.