Stratified slopes, numerical and empirical stability analysis

Sauffisseau, R; Ahangar Asr, A

Abstract

Urbanisation means that many natural slopes in and around cities are often subjected to cuts
resulting in dramatic changes in the geometry of slope faces mostly by increasing slope angle
which could lead to failures with catastrophic consequences. As most natural slopes are of nonhomogeneous
layered nature, understanding the stability behaviour of such slopes will be of
utmost importance. The current practice in analysing slopes of complicated nature,
geometrically and materially, is mostly to apply simplifications sacrificing accuracy leading to
use of large factors of safety, which could undermine analytical and economic feasibility of
projects. In this research limit-equilibrium and finite element methods are used, respectively by
OASYS Slope and PLAXIS 2D, to empirically and numerically model and analyse geometrically
non-homogeneous stratified slopes with the aim of understanding the effects of non-homogeneity
of geometry and materials on stability under various inclination angles of slope
face. The analysis included determination of factors of safety as well as a sensitivity analysis
looking into the combined effects of contributing parameters.

Citation

Sauffisseau, R., & Ahangar Asr, A. (2018). Stratified slopes, numerical and empirical stability analysis. Proceedings of the ICE - Engineering and Computational Mechanics, 171(4), 174-185. https://doi.org/10.1680/jencm.18.00017

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 19, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Nov 27, 2018
• Publication Date: Nov 27, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 27, 2019
• Journal: Proceedings of the ICE - Engineering and Computational Mechanics
• Print ISSN: 1755-0777
• Electronic ISSN: 1755-0785
• Publisher: Thomas Telford
• Volume: 171
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 174-185
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1680/jencm.18.00017
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1680/jencm.18.00017
• Related Public URLs: https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/journal/jencm