• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.83-91
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• 2006

Recently, the intensive rainstorm possibly induced by global warming plays a key role on the instability of railway adjacent slopes. The instability of slopes results as covering and loss of railway lines induced by slided soil mass. According to the site investigation on the failed slopes triggered by rainfall, low types of slope failure were observed: shallow, intermediate, gully erosion, and soil-rock interface failures. The observation reveals the different characteristics of slope failure depending on the thickness of soil layer, morphological features of slope, etc. Based upon the observations, flume tests were conducted to analyze the sliding mechanism of each failure. The variables of flume test are soil layer thickness, rainfall intensity, and morphology of slope under the constant condition of the percentage of fine, initial soil moisture content, slope angle and compaction energy. Test results show that shallow failure was mostly observed from the surface of the slope and caused by the soil erosion; in addition, compared to the other types of failure, the occurrence of initial erosion is late, however, the development of erosion is fast. In gully erosion failure, the collected water from the water catchment area helps erosion of the upper soil layer and transfer of residual corestone, which impedes the erosion process once the upper soil layers are eroded and corestone are exposed. The soil-rock interface failure shows the most fast initial erosion process among the failure types. Interestingly, the common feature observed from the different types of failure was the occurrence of the initial deformation near the toe of slopes which implies the existence of surbsurface flow along the downslope direction.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.7-31
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• 2005

Landslides triggered by rainfall produce severe effects on the serviceability and stability of railway. Since small amount of soil mass slipped on the rail can cause derailment which will induce great danger on people and trains, slope stability problem is one of the major concerns on the operation of railway In this study we investigated the characteristics of rainfall driven landslide near railway. A total of 23 sites were visited. Four different types of slope failure were classified based upon the morphology of the slipped slope triggered by rainfall. From the analysis dimensions of slopes (height, length and slope) do not show particular correlation with the types of landslides. In addition, morphological and geological features of slope influence the occurrence of different types of landslides.