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Stability analysis of soil slopes based on strain information

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Abstract

The failure of engineering slopes may cause great property loss and casualties, against which the slope deformation monitoring and instrumentation are needed. To investigate the relationship between safety factors and the displacements/strains of slopes, ten synthetic numerical models with different slope heights, slope angles, ranges of loading and soil parameters were designed and tested via finite difference code FLAC. By applying incremental load on the top of slope, the distribution of strain field and safety factor of slope were analyzed. The results indicated that there are three different modes of strain development inside the slope under uniform strip loading. During failure progress, the factors of safety and the corresponding total strain amounts at different loading stages have been analyzed. Based on the results, a modified empirical formula relating safety factor to the average maximum horizontal strain was proposed, which can be used as a theoretical guidance for preliminary slope stability check based on the instrumented strains.

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Abbreviations

γ :

Bulk weight

E :

Deformation modulus

υ :

Poisson’s ratio

c* :

Cohesion

φ :

Friction angle

h :

Slope height

β :

Slope angle

d :

Load width

H :

Model height

L1:

Model width

L2:

Width of model top

xi, yi :

The Coordinate of node A

xj, yj :

The Coordinate of node B

Δxi, Δyi :

Displacement increment of node A

Δxj, Δyj :

Displacement increment of node B

l :

The length of AB

l x :

The length of AB in x direction

l′:

The deformed length of AB

Δδx :

The change of length in x direction

Δδy :

The change of length in y direction

\(\bar{\varepsilon }_{h\hbox{max} }\) :

The average of maximum horizontal strain according to Zhu et al. (2014)

ε xi :

Horizontal strain of every monitoring cross section according to Zhu et al. (2014)

a, b, c :

Dimensionless fitting parameters

ε :

Axial strain of AB

ε x :

Axial strain of AB in x direction

ε y :

Axial strain of AB in y direction

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the General Financial Grant from National Key R& D Program of China (Project No. 2019YFC1509600), Chongqing Construction Science and Technology Plan Project (No. 2019-0045), Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (No. KJZD-K201900102) and High-end Foreign Expert Introduction program (No. G20190022002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Wengang Zhang & Hanlong Liu

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Zhenyu Wang, Wengang Zhang, Xuecheng Gao & Hanlong Liu

  3. National Joint Engineering Research Center of Geohazards Prevention in the Reservoir Areas, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Wengang Zhang & Hanlong Liu

  4. Institute of Engineering Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Kaiserstraße 10, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Thomas Böhlke

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Correspondence to Wengang Zhang.

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Wang, Z., Zhang, W., Gao, X. et al. Stability analysis of soil slopes based on strain information. Acta Geotech. 15, 3121–3134 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-020-00985-x

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