Abstract
This paper shows how accurately and efficiently reliability analyses of geotechnical installations can be performed by directly coupling geotechnical software with a reliability solver. An earth slope is used as the study object. The limit equilibrium method of Morgenstern-Price is used to calculate factors of safety and find the critical slip surface. The deterministic software package Slope/w is coupled with the StRAnD reliability software. Reliability indexes of critical probabilistic surfaces are evaluated by the first-order reliability methods (FORM). By means of sensitivity analysis, the effective cohesion (\( c^{\prime} \)) is found to be the most relevant uncertain geotechnical parameter for slope equilibrium. The slope was tested using different geometries. Finally, a critical slip surface, identified in terms of minimum factor of safety, is shown here not to be the critical surface in terms of reliability index.
Keywords
- Earth slope
- Direct coupling
- Reliability analysis
- Equilibrium analysis
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the financial support by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for research funding (Grant number no. 88882.145758/2017-01) and the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
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Siacara, A.T., Napa-García, G.F., Beck, A.T., Futai, M.M. (2021). Reliability Analysis of Earth Slopes Using Direct Coupling. In: Barla, M., Di Donna, A., Sterpi, D. (eds) Challenges and Innovations in Geomechanics. IACMAG 2021. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 125. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64514-4_110
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64514-4_110
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