SLOPE STABILITY

ENEC14014

By Dr. Mehdi Mirzababaei

CQUniversity

Examples of slope failure

Retaining walls
Types of slope failure
Translational

Rotational

Rotational

Examples of translational and rotational slides

In translational slides the mass displaces

along a planar or undulating surface of
rupture, sliding out over the original ground
surface.

Flow slide

Rotational slide (toe slide)

Slope stability

Causes of slope failures

o

Erosion by water or wind

overloading at the crest

desiccation cracks

excavation

rapid draw down of dams near clay slopes and

earthquake.

Slope stability

Rapid dewatering in reservoirs

Removal of water confining pressure

Slow pore-water pressure dissipation

seepage

Factor of safety of slope

Long-term factor of safety of slopes in soils

(translational slides, infinite slopes, drained behaviour)

is the sum of mobilised shear FORCE along the slope

Without Seepage (no pore water pressure or above the water table)

()
+

( )
( )

In the above equation if FS=1 then we can find the depth of the
plane of sliding.

With seepage (soil under the water table)

( )

()

Short-term factor of safety of slopes in fine grained soils

(translational slides, infinite slopes, undrained behaviour)

( )

( )

Su is the undrained shear strength of the soil

With FS=1 the maximum depth of the slope is: =

If =45 =

With FS=1 the maximum angle of slope is: = sin1 (2

( )

1
2

( )

The infinite slope failure mechanism is more relevant to

coarse-grained soils than fine-grained soils because most
slope failures observed in fine-grained soils are finite and
rotational.

Factor of safety of slope (method of slices)

Long-term factor of safety of slopes in c soils
(Circular slip surface, finite slopes, drained behaviour)
Bishop Method, 1955

{( / cos )+ (1 ) tan }

Short-term factor of safety of slopes in fine grained soils (Circular slip

surface, finite slopes, undrained behaviour)
Bishop Method, 1955

Factor of safety of slope (method of slices)

Long-term factor of safety of slopes in c soils
(non-circular slip surface, finite slopes, drained behaviour)
Janbu Method, 1973

{ +0 (1 ) tan }

f0 is related to the inter slice shear stress

Short-term factor of safety of slopes in fine grained soils

(non-circular slip surface, finite slopes, undrained behaviour)
Janbu Method, 1973

10

Factor of safety of slope (method of slices)

Bishop factor of safety of cracked slopes

For drained condition (effective stress analysis)

For undrained condition (total stress analysis)

11

Procedure for method of slices

1) Draw the slope to scale

2) Note the positions and magnitudes of external loads.

3) Draw a trial slip surface and identify its point of rotation.
4) Draw the phreatic surface.
5) Calculate the depth of the tension crack (
tension crack. Use effective unit weight

2
( )

2
)

for fine-grained soils and sketch in a possible location of the

if the crack is filled with water.

6) Divide the soil mass above the slip surface into at least 5 slices.

12

Procedure for method of slices

7) For each slice:
a) Measure the width, bj.
b) Determine Wj, (total weight of a slice including any external load). For example, for a two-layer
soil profile, the weight of slice 2 is:

Note: s1 and s2 denote soil layers 1 and 2, qs is the surcharge load per unit area
za , zb and zc are the mean heights.
c) Measure the angle j for each slice, cos-1 (bj/lj). Angles left of the centre of rotation
are negative.
d) Sketch an equipotential line starting from the intersection of the vertical centre line and
the slip surface to intersect the phreatic surface at 90. The vertical projection of the
equipotential line is the pore-water pressure head, (zw)j.
8) Calculate ru and mj (note: use appropriate values of and su for each slice with looking at the
bottom of the slide to see in which layer it lies.
9) Prepare a spreadsheet and calculate the factor of safety by guessing a value of FS and then
iterate until the guessed value of FS and the calculated value of FS are the same or within a small
tolerance (<0.01).

13

Procedure for method of slices

Bishop factor of safety of cracked slopes