• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.21-32
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• 1991

The purpose of this paper is to develop a reliability model for slope stability of Earth-rockfill dams which accounts for all uncertainties encountered. The uncertain factors of the design variables include the cohesion, the angle of internal friction, and the porewater Pressure in each zone. More specifically, the model errors in estimating those variables are studied in depth. To reduce the uncertainties due to model errors, updated design variables are obtained using Bayesian Theory. For stability analysis, both the two-dimesional stability analysis and the three-dimensional stability analysis where the end effects and the system reliability concept are considered are used for the reliability calculations. The deterministic safety factor by the three-dimensional analysis is lager than that by the two-dimensional anlysis. However, the probability of failure by the three-dimensional analysis is about 3.5 times larger that by the two-dimensional analysis. It is because the system reliability concept is used in the three-dimensional analysis. The sensitivity analysis shows that the probability of failure is more sensitive to the uncertainty of the cohesion than that of the angle of internal friction.