Performance of Slopes During Earthquake and the Following Rainfall

Abstract

AbstractEarthquake is a major cause of landslides in a lot of mountainous areas throughout the world. However, when struck by earthquake, some slopes with certain topographies or geological conditions only experienced a certain loss of stability, resulting in tensile cracks on the surfaces rather than a complete failure. These slopes with shaking-induced cracks become vulnerable to rainfall due to the reduced soil strength and water infiltration. Previous studies also suggested that, rainfall that followed an earthquake could cause a significant failure of the slope with cracks. Therefore, in areas where earthquake and rainfall are common, the prediction and mitigation of slope failure caused by earthquake and rainfall are of great importance, which calls for a thorough investigation into the performance of slopes to earthquake and rainfall. This study aimed to examine the performance of slopes to post-earthquake rainfall through the finite element method. First, the slope deformation caused by earthquake was simulated. Although the generation of cracks were not incorporated, the main features of slope deformation such as the location of slip surface and the deformation scale were reproduced. After that, the effects of permeability change and damage due to shaking were included in the analysis of slope deformation during rainfall. Simulation results showed that, the proposed method performed well to reproduce the slope deformation caused by post-earthquake rainfall.KeywordsSlopesPerformanceEarthquakeCracksRainfall