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Geomechanics and Engineering Volume 23, Number 3, November10 2020, pages 261-273 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12989/gae.2020.23.3.261 |
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In-situ monitoring and reliability analysis of an embankment slope with soil variability |
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Tao Bai, Han Yang, Xiaobing Chen, Shoucheng Zhang and Yuanshang Jin
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| Abstract | ||
| This paper presents an efficient method utilizing user-defined computer functional codes to determine the reliability of an embankment slope with spatially varying soil properties in real time. The soils'mechanical properties varied with the soil layers that had different degrees of compaction and moisture content levels. The Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) for the degree of compaction and Kriging simulation of moisture content variation were adopted and programmed to predict their spatial distributions, respectively, that were subsequently used to characterize the spatial distribution of the soil shear strengths. The shear strength parameters were then integrated into the Geostudio command file to determine the safety factor of the embankment slope. An explicit metamodal for the performance function, using the Kriging method, was established and coded to efficiently compute the failure probability of slope with varying moisture contents. Sensitivity analysis showed that the proposed method significantly reduced the computational time compared to Monte Carlo simulation. About 300 times LHS Geostudio computations were needed to optimize precision and efficiency in determining the failure probability. The results also revealed that an embankment slope is prone to high failure risk if the degree of compaction is low and the moisture content is high. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| soil; embankment; compaction; moisture content; slope stability; reliability | ||
| Address | ||
| Tao Bai: School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, China Han Yang: 1.) School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, China 2.) Wuhan Hengtong Highway Survey and Design Co., Ltd, Wuhan, China Xiaobing Chen: School of Transportation, Southeast University, China Shoucheng Zhang: Wuhan Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd., Wuhan 430072, China Yuanshang Jin: Liaoning Zhixin Highway Engineering Technology Consulting Corporation, Shenyang, 110000, China | ||