Abstract
An analytical approach for the estimating of critical seismic acceleration of rock slopes was proposed in this study. Based on the 3D horn failure model, the critical seismic acceleration coefficient of rock slopes was conducted with the modified Hoek–Brown (MHB) failure criterion in the framework of upper-bound theory for the first time. The nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion is incorporated into the three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism, and a generalized tangent technique is introduced and employed to convert the nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion into a linear criterion. The critical seismic acceleration coefficients obtained from this study were validated by the numerical simulation results based on finite element limit analysis. The agreement showed that the proposed method is effective. Finally, design charts were provided for exceptional cases for practical use in rock engineering.
Highlights
Slope stability is always an important topic of debate, in geo-mechanics, and in engineering practice
Recent researches show that the practical slope collapse in a critical state is a three-dimensional failure, and the plane-strain failure mechanisms will lead to conservative estimations for three-dimensional slope stability issues
Based on the obtained results, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. Based on the generalized tangential technical, the modified Hoek–Brown (MHB) failure criterion was adopted to estimate the stability of rock slopes
Summary
Slope stability is always an important topic of debate, in geo-mechanics, and in engineering practice. Many studies have adopted various failure mechanisms to analyze the slope stability issues in recent years in some theoretical methods He et al investigated the soil slope displacement induced by the earthquake force based on the log spiral failure model proposed with considering tensile strength cut-off in upper bound theory [1,2]. In recent years, based on the 3D horn failure model, the effects of seepage forces, inhomogenous soils, and pile reinforcement on slope stability have been addressed [8,9,10]. Note that these researches are all limited to calculating soil slope stability numbers with the Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion. A design chart will be provided for the particular situation of actual use in rock engineering
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