POST LOCALIZATION ANALYSIS OF SOIL SLOPES

Abstract eng:
Analysis of soil slopes is of great importance to geotechnical engineers and is often achieved by using simplified techniques such as those based on limit equilibrium method. The classical finite element method has also been used with varying degree of success. But a major difficulty facing the classical continuum approach is the loss of the well posedness of the boundary value problem due to the onset of localization in the underlying elastoplastic constitutive model that generally follows a non-associative flow rule. In the past few years, different regularization techniques have been proposed to remedy the problems associated with the post localization analysis of elastoplastic solids. Here we discuss the application of one of these regularization techniques, i.e. the weak discontinuity approach. It is shown that the slope stability analysis can be carried out far enough, so that the effect of soil volume change on stability can be carefully examined. It is further confirmed that such volume change effects could be quite significant and omission of these effects would lead to unsafe design of soil embankments and slopes.

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