Seismic stability of jointed rock slopes under obliquely incident earthquake waves

Abstract

Seismic stability of slopes has been traditionally analyzed with vertically propagated earthquake waves. However, for rock slopes, the earthquake waves might approach the outcrop still with a evidently oblique direction. To investigate the impact of obliquely incident earthquake excitations, the input method for SV and P waves with arbitrary incident angles is conducted, respectively, by adopting the equivalent nodal force method together with a viscous-spring boundary. Then, the input method is introduced within the framework of ABAQUS software and verified by a numerical example. Both SV and P waves input are considered herein for a 2D jointed rock slope. For the jointed rock mass, the jointed material model in ABAQUS software is employed to simulate its behavior as a continuum. Results of the study show that the earthquake incident angles have significance on the seismic stability of jointed rock slopes. The larger the incident angle, the greater the risk of slope instability. Furthermore, the stability of the jointed rock slopes also is affected by wave types of earthquakes heavily. P waves induce weaker responses and SV waves are shown to be more critical.