Investigation of Carter method for locating slip surfaces and its performance on varying slope conditions

Abstract

Assessment of slope internal deformation has been regarded as a crucial factor in the investigation of landslide scale and its run-out distance. The information on the ground surface is easier to obtain by generating UAV and SAR data while investigating slip surfaces beneath the ground surface is costly and time-consuming. Carter and Bentley (1985) proposed a simple method, which utilizes ground surface measurement to estimate the position and shape of the slip surface and has been applied in the field study in recent years. However, the applicability of Carter’s method has not been investigated comprehensively due to the difficulty of gathering data beneath the ground surface. In order to gather comprehensive data on slope deformation in the entire landslide process, a numerical model of the material point method (MPM) is adopted to simulate landslide failure in varied slope angle, which is 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, and 90°. In this study, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the performance of Carter’s method in predicting slip surfaces under different slope angles. The performance of Carter’s method was evaluated by the concordance correlation coefficient, and the results indicated that the located sliding surface by Carter’s method shows a well-predicted capability.