Influences of rainfall infiltration on stability of accumulation slope by in-situ monitoring test

Abstract

In order to improve the understanding of the fundamental mechanism of rainfall infiltration induced landslides in accumulation slope and to clarify some important characteristics of slope performance, artificial rainfall simulation tests and field synthetic monitoring were carried out on a typical accumulation slope of Shangrui Freeway in Guizhou Province, China. The monitoring results show that the most accumulation landslides caused by rainfall infiltration are shallow relaxation failure, whose deformation zone lies within the top 0–4 m soil layer. The deformation of slope gradually reduces from the surface, where the greatest deformation lies in, to the deep part of slope. The average percentage of infiltration during the first 2 h is 86%, and then it reduces gradually with time because of the increase of the surface runoff. The average percentage of infiltration drop to a relatively stable value (50%) after 6 h. Rainfall infiltration causes obvious increase of pore-water pressure, which may result in a reduction of shear strength due to a decrease in effective stress and wetting-induced softening. The double-effect of rainfall infiltration is the main reason of rainfall infiltration induced landslides in accumulation slope.

Keywords

accumulation slope / stability / rainfall infiltration / in-situ monitoring

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