Upper bound analysis and calculation comparison for rock slope stability with Hoek–Brown failure criterion based on strength reduction technique

Abstract

Hoek-Brown failure criterion has been widely used in slope stability analysis since this criterion is proposed by Hoek & Brown (1980), and the validity of this application has been proved (Collins et al. 1988, Hoek, 1983, Hoek et al. 2002). The present stability analysis methods of rock slope subjected to Hoek-Brown failure criterion including limit equilibrium method, numerical analysis methods (finite element method and finite difference method) and limit analysis method (upper bound theorem, lower bound theorem). Among these methods, Collins et al. (1988) employed tangential technique to achieve the upper bound analysis of rock slope subjected to HoekBrown failure criterion for the first time. Based on the tangential technique,YANG et al. (2004a,b, 2006, 2007, 2009) used the instantaneous strength parameters ct and ϕt to calculate the upper bound values of stability ratio of rock slope. At present, the new development is reported which applys limit analysis finite element method to analyze the stability of rock slope.Bydeveloping the failure surface approximation method proposed by Abbo & Sloan (1995), Merifield et al. (2006) and Li et al. (2008, 2009) adopt this method to compute the upper and lower bound values of static and dynamic stability ratio for rock slope.