Seismic stability of earth slopes with tension crack

Abstract

Cracks at the crest of slopes frequently occur during earthquakes. Such cracks result from limited tension strength of the soil. A tension cut-off in Mohr-Coulomb shear strength can represent this limited strength. Presented is an extension of variational analysis of slope stability with a tension crack considering seismicity. Both translational and rotational failure mechanisms are included in a pseudo-static analysis of slope stability. Developed is a closed-form to assess the seismic stability of slopes with zero tensile strength. The results indicate that the presence of the tension crack has significant effects on the seismic stability of slopes, i.e., leading to small value of the yield acceleration. Considering soil tension strength in seismic slope analysis may lead to overestimation on the stability, as much as 50% for vertical slopes. Imposing tension crack results in transit of the critical failure mode to a straight line from a log-spiral, except for flat slopes with small soil cohesion. Under seismic conditions, large cohesion may increase the depth of crack, moving it closer to the slope.

Keywords

slope stability / tension / crack / limit equilibrium / seismic effect

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Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41630638, 51878248, and 51578213), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2017B00814) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).

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