Determination of Creep-Induced Displacement of Soil Slopes Based on LEM

Abstract

The creep of earth slopes is an important challenge of the long-term stability of slopes. This paper develops a limit equilibrium method (LEM)-based analytical approach for calculating the shear displacement of creep-induced failure surface in 2D state for all slices where both force and moment equilibrium equations are simultaneously satisfied as a new research. The relation between shear displacement and creep time is obtained with regard to visco-elastoplastic creep model. The overall safety factor is first calculated for the slip surface using Spencer method. Then, the shear displacements of all slices are obtained based on vertical displacement of crown and using displacement compatibility relation exists between slices. By combining force and moment equilibrium equations and assuming a zero resultant for inter-slice forces, the vertical displacement at crown is determined using visco-elastopastic creep model. A numerical model was developed to calculate slope displacement by the proposed method. Force and moment equilibrium equations are simultaneously satisfied by iteration technique. The proposed method is verified through two numerical examples comparing the new approach and conventional finite element method.

Keywords

• creep
• displacement
• limit equilibrium
• soil slope