Reliability analysis of pile stabilized earth slopes using weighted uniform simulation method

Abstract

The finite element method (FEM) is now widely used for stability analysis of earth slopes reinforced with stabilizing piles for the advantages of better simulation of soil–pile interactive behaviors and clearly capturing the complex failure mechanism of pile-reinforced slopes. However, the implementation of probabilistic simulation to model the influence of inherent random variables onto reinforced earth slopes is still challenging due to the extensive computational resources required for the repeated execution of the Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations. This paper proposes a framework for probabilistically analyzing the pile-reinforced earth slope based on a weighted uniform simulation (WUS) method implemented by secondary development of ABAQUS-via-Python codes. Using the proposed method, important information of probabilistic indices can be obtained with less computational cost, and the influence of different pile design parameters on the probabilistic FEM stability analysis of reinforced slopes is systematically studied. The reliability indices β and the most probable failure points (MPPs) for optimal designs of pile-reinforced earth slopes under different pile design parameter combinations (L, Lx/Ls, S, D) are obtained, which can provide useful reference information for conducting slope reinforcement practicing works. In addition, the influence of uncertainty and correlation of soil strength parameters on the reliability of the reinforced slope is also investigated.