Slope Stability Analysis Based on the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian Method

Abstract

Slope stability analysis based on the finite element method (FEM) is a powerful tool comparing with the traditional limit equilibrium methods. However, severe mesh distortion of the traditional Lagrangian FEM may result in convergence difficulty and the obtained factor of safety (FOS) is not reliable. In this study, a stability analysis based on the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) method is presented. The method allows materials to flow between different grids regardless of mesh distortion. In an example problem, both shear strength reduction (SSR) technique and gravity increasing (GI) technique are utilized to study the capability of the proposed method. The result shows that the method can effectively simulate the entire process of failure to post failure state. The estimated factor of safety (FOS) rarely varies with the mesh density and agrees well with the previous studies based on the traditional Lagrangian FEM method. The FOS by the GI technique is slightly smaller than that by the SSR technique.