Influence of secondary reinforcement layers to enhance the stability of steep soil slope under earthquake loading

摘要

Abstract Analysis of slope stability is a classic issue with immense consequences in geotechnical engineering. Using a two-dimensional finite element analysis tool, the present study investigates the influence of different distribution patterns in the soil slope reinforced with geogrid on the shear failure plane and stability of the slope under gravity and various earthquake loading conditions. A soil slope of height, H = 10 m, having inclination from the horizontal ground β = 60° is considered in the present study. The pseudo-static approach is applied to simulate the earthquake loading, and the horizontal seismic acceleration coefficient (i.e., kh) is varied from 0.1 to 0.4 to access the behavior of the slope system. The rigorous lower bound and upper bound strength reduction analysis has been performed for all the considered cases to determine the factor of safety (FOS) of the soil slope system. A parametric study is performed, and a secondary reinforcement technique is adopted to enhance and investigate the performance of soil slope. The study reveals that for the considered problem, the primary reinforcing layers alone are not sufficient enough to stabilize the slope, and the inclusion of secondary reinforcement results in additional improvement in the factor of safety in both gravity and seismic loading. Moreover, the various modes of failure of the unreinforced and reinforced slope are discussed exhaustively. This study concluded that after reinforcing the soil slope with primary reinforcement and the secondary layers, the FOS satisfies the design criteria of minimum factor of safety for a stable slope in both static and seismic conditions.