Investigation of Effect of Input Ground Motion on the Failure Surface of Mountain Slopes

Abstract

The reliable seismic stability evaluation of the natural slopes and geotechnical structures has become a critical factor of the design. Pseudo-static or permanent displacement methods are typically employed to evaluate the seismic slope performance. In both methods, the effect of input ground motion on the sliding surface is ignored, and failure surface from the limit equilibrium method is used. For the assessment of the seismic sensitivity of failure surface, two-dimensional non-linear finite element analyses are performed. The performance of the finite element model was validated against centrifuge measurements. A parametric study with a range of input ground motion was performed, and numerical results were used to assess the influence of ground motion characteristics on the sliding surface. Based on the results, it is demonstrated that the characteristics of input ground motion have a significant influence on the location of the seismically induce failure surface. In addition to dynamic analysis, pseudo-static analyses were performed to evaluate the discrepancy. It is observed that sliding surfaces developed from pseudo-static and dynamic analyses are different. The location of the failure surface change with the amplitude and Tm of motion. Therefore, it is recommended to determine failure surfaces from dynamic analysis