Back analysis of slope failure with Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation

Abstract

Field observed performance of slopes can be used to back calculate input parameters of soil properties and evaluate uncertainty of a slope stability analysis model. In this paper, a new probabilistic method is proposed for back analysis of slope failure. The proposed back analysis method is formulated based on Bayes’ theorem and solved using the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method with a Metropolis–Hasting algorithm. The method is very flexible as any type of prior distribution can be used. The method is also computationally efficient when a response surface method is employed to approximate the slope stability model. An illustrative example of back analysis of a hypothetical slope failure is presented. Effects of jumping distribution functions and number of samples on the efficiency of Markov chains are studied. It is found that the covariance matrix of the jumping function can be set to be one half of the covariance of the prior distribution to achieve a reasonable acceptance rate and that 80,000 samples seem to be sufficient to obtain robust posterior statistics for the example. It is also found that the correlation of cohesion and friction angle of soil does not affect the posterior statistics and the remediation design of the slope significantly, while the type of the prior distribution seems to have much influence on the remediation design.