Simulation of the conditional models of borehole’s characteristics for slope reliability assessment

Abstract

The stability analysis of slopes is a subject of concern for many geotechnical researchers. In order to simplify, the stochastic analyses of soil slopes are modeled as plane strain issues. This is while in real projects, in order to better identification, the boreholes data are distributed in the site and their locations do not satisfy the criteria of plane strain problems. In this paper, the soil slope stability of a real site is investigated through two procedures using the effects of fifteen borehole’s characteristics expressed by coupling geostatistical and finite element methods (FEM). The first method, which is the Conditional Method Not Considering Borehole’s Location (CMNCBL), the soil properties of the boreholes are mapped onto the selected section and then are predicted on the mesh element of the section of analysis based on geostatistical analysis. In the second method, which is the Conditional Method Considering Borehole’s Location (CMCBL), the soil properties are estimated at the mapped boreholes and then at every mesh element of fourteen optional sections. Eventually, the comparison of results depicted that the second method is a method with higher reliability, and the soil properties can be better modeled in other parts of the site.