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Local soil failure before general slope failure

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Abstract

Slopes are generally characterized by non-uniform stress field. Additional stresses induced by changes in boundary conditions can emphasize local differences in the stress level. As a consequence, every failure process is, at first, local, with formation of plastic zones, then general. This is the subject of this paper, which concerns clay slopes, whose failure generally implies formation of a shear zone. A special consideration is addressed to the simple and special case of infinite slope which is also featured by transition from local to general failure, even if stress conditions are uniform along the potential failure plane.

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Abbreviations

γ:

unit weight of soil

γsat :

unit weight of saturated soil

γw :

unit weight of water

ϕu :

angle of friction in terms of total stress

ϕ′:

effective angle of internal friction

c′:

effective cohesion intercept

ϕm :

mobilized angle of friction

x, y:

co-ordinates parallel and normal to the slope

σ′ xx :

effective stress parallel to the slope

σ′ yy :

effective stress normal to the slope

σ yy :

total stress normal to the slope

C :

ratio between effective stresses parallel and normal to the slope

τ (τ xy ):

shear stress

τi :

initial shear stress

τf :

available shear strength peak available shear strength

τr :

residual shear strength

s′:

mean effective stress

u :

pore pressure

E i :

resultant of stress parallel to the ground surface, above the slip surface

OCR:

over-consolidation ratio

I BG :

generalized brittleness index [I BG=(τf−τ)/τf]

K 0 :

coefficient of earth pressure at rest, ratio between horizontal and vertical effective stresses

K p :

passive earth pressure coefficient

q c :

cone penetration resistance

δ:

angle between the slope’s direction and the failure planes

FS:

safety factor against general failure

FS1f :

value of safety factor when local failure occurs for the first time

D :

coefficient defined by Eq. (6)

D 0 :

D value at the beginning of the deformation process

D crit :

D value at the general failure

R :

radius of Mohr’s circle, defined by Eq. (7)

θ (θ1, θ2):

angle between the slope’s inclination and the minor principal stress

γp :

plastic shear strain

α:

orientation of the slope against the horizontal

Y :

depth from the ground surface

H :

landslide thickness

H w :

depth of the water table from the ground surface

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria Geotecnica, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21, Napoli, 80125, Italy

    Gianfranco Urciuoli

  2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Seconda Universitá di Napoli, via Roma, 29, 81031, Aversa, Italy

    Luciano Picarelli

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Université Laval, Ste-Foy, QC, C1R7P4, Canada

    Serge Leroueil

Authors
  1. Gianfranco Urciuoli
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  2. Luciano Picarelli
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  3. Serge Leroueil
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Correspondence to Gianfranco Urciuoli.

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Urciuoli, G., Picarelli, L. & Leroueil, S. Local soil failure before general slope failure. Geotech Geol Eng 25, 103–122 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-006-0009-0

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