• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.5-16
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• 2016

A rainfall induced slope failure is a common natural hazard in mountainous areas worldwide. Sudden and rapid failures which have a high possibility of occurrence in a steep slope are always the most dangerous due to their suddenness and high velocities. Based on a series of experiments this study aimed to determine a critical angle which could be considered as an approximate threshold for a sudden failure. The experiments were performed using 0.42 mm mean grain size sand in a 200 cm long, 60 cm wide and 50 cm deep rectangular flume. A numerical model was created by integrating a 2D seepage flow model and a 2D slope stability analysis model to predict the failure surface and the time of occurrence. The results showed that, the failure mode for the entire material will be sudden for slopes greater than $67^{\circ}$; in contrast the failure mode becomes retrogressive. There is no clear link between the degree of saturation and the mode of failure. The simulation results in considering matric suction showed good matching with the results obtained from experiment. A subsequent discarding of the matric suction effect in calculating safety factors will result in a deeper predicted failure surface and an incorrect predicted time of occurrence.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.03b
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• pp.457-464
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• 2000

Stereographic method is a general and basic method to analyse sliding failure potential of rock slope. Region of failure analysis using stereographic method extend to curved slope from straight slope in this paper, Curved slope is defined as the multi-face slope with free surface more than two face and has different characteristics from straight single face slope. Individual daylight envelopes of free surfaces are combined into total daylight envelope of multi-face slope. So, sliding envelope of multi-face slope is the daylight envelope except friction cone. Specially, If only single joint set is developed in the slope, single plane sliding(or plane failure) is impossible in the single-face straight slope, but possible in the multi-face slope. In the multi-face slope with only one joint set, single plane sliding occurs when orientation of sliding plane is between two side slope orientation in the sliding envelope.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.1060-1067
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• 2009

Previous research on the slope failure has mainly reported that most of the slope failures occur due to surface rainfall infiltration in the rainy season. A slope of which surface is protected by shotcrete or plants, can also fail due to increase in pore water pressure from the ground water flow beneath the surface, rather than from the surface. In this study such case of slope behavior is investigated using the model test and numerical method including strength reduction method. Hydraulic boundary conditions of the slopes is considered using coupled numerical scheme. The failure mechanism of the slope is investigated and the effect of pore water pressure on slope safety is identified. Increase in pore water pressure due to lateral infiltration has significantly reduced the stability of slope.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.34-34
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• 2012

Heavy storms rainfall has caused many landslides and slope failures especially in the mountainous area of the world. Landslides and slope failures are common geologic hazards and posed serious threats and globally cause billions in monetary losses and thousands of casualies each year so that studies on slope stability and its failure mechanism under rainfall are being increasing attention of these days. Rainfall-induced slope failures are generally caused by the rise in ground water level, and increase in pore water pressures and seepage forces during periods of intense rainfall. The effective stress in the soil will be decreased due to the increased pore pressure, which thus reduces the soil shear strength, eventually resulting in slope failure. During the rainfall, a wetting front goes downward into the slope, resulting in a gradual increase of the water content and a decrease of the negative pore-water pressure. This negative pore-water pressure is referred to as matric suction when referenced to the pore air pressure that contributes to the stability of unsaturated soil slopes. Therefore, the importance is the study of saturated unsaturated soil behaviors in evaluation of slope stability under heavy rainfall condition. In an actual field, a series of failures may occur in a slope due to a rainfall event. So, this study attempts to develop a numerical model to investigate this failure mechanism. A two-dimensional seepage flow model coupled with a one-dimensional surface flow and erosion/deposition model is used for seepage analysis. It is necessary to identify either there is surface runoff produced or not in a soil slope during a rainfall event, while analyzing the seepage and stability of such slopes. Runoff produced by rainfall may result erosion/deposition process on the surface of the slope. The depth of runoff has vital role in the seepage process within the soil domain so that surface flow and erosion/deposition model computes the surface water head of the runoff produced by the rainfall, and erosion/deposition on the surface of the model slope. Pore water pressure and moisture content data obtained by the seepage flow model are then used to analyze the stability of the slope. Spencer method of slope stability analysis is incorporated into dynamic programming to locate the critical slip surface of a general slope.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.469-485
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• 2014

A series of bearing capacity tests was conducted with eccentrically loaded model surface and shallow strip footings resting close to a slope to investigate behavior of such footings (ultimate loads, failure surfaces, load-displacement curves, rotation of footing, etc.). Ultimate loads of footing close to slope decreased with increasing eccentricity for both surface and shallow footings. Failure surfaces were not symmetrical, primary failure surfaces occurred on the eccentricity side (the slope side) and secondary failure surfaces occurred on the other side. Lengths of failure surfaces decreased with increasing eccentricity. Footings always rotated towards eccentricity side a few degrees. For eccentrically loaded footing, decrease in ultimate load with increasing eccentricity is roughly in agreement with Customary Analysis.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.85-90
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• 1988

A probabilistic model for the failure in a homogeneous soil slope is presented. The Safety of the slope is measured through its probability of failure rather than the customary factor of safety. The safety margin of slope failure is assumed to follow a normal distribution. Sources of uncertainties affecting characterization of soil property in a homogeneous soil layer include inherent spatial variability., estimation error from insufficient samples, and measurement errors. Uncertainties of the shear strength-along potential failure surface are expressed by one-dimensional random field models. The rupture surface, created at toe of a soil slope, has been considered to propagate towards the boundary along a path following an exponential (log-spiral) law. Having derived the statistical characteristics of the rupture surface and of the forces which act along it, the probability of failure of the slope was found. Finally the developed procedure has been applied in a case study to yield the reliability of a soil slope.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.147-154
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• 1997

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the failure surface in a soil mass by a excavation of the model ground. The failure mechanism of an earth structure is usually determined from field failure observations or from laboratory model tests at failure. To study the failure surface for the excavated slope, laboratory model tests were performed by changing the angle of the excavated slope and the ground condition. Results of the laboratory model tests were compared with those obtained with theoretical solutions using limit equilibrium analysis method. The results of model tests show that, there is a failure to create a straight line in the low angle of excavated surface and a create a circle as the angle increases. As the angle of excavated surface is increasing, the angle of the failure surface increases too. In the angle of the failure surface, the submerged ground is less than the dry ground at $3.2^{\circ}$.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.3
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• pp.253-263
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• 2024

Slope stability is generally paid more attention to in slope protection works, especially for slope containing weak layers. Two indexes of safety factor and failure model are selected to perform slope stability. Moreover, the finite element limit analysis method comprehensively combines the advantage of the limit analysis method and the finite element method obtaining the upper and lower bounds of the safety factor and the failure mode under the slope stability limit state. In this study, taking a waste dump containing a weak layer as an engineering background, the finite element limit analysis method is adopted to explore the potential failure mode. Meanwhile, the sensitivity analysis of slope stability is performed on geometrical and geotechnical parameters of the waste dump. The results show that the failure mode of the waste dump slope is two wedges if the weak layer is located on the ground surface (Model A), while the slope can be observed as three wedges failure if the weak layer is below the ground surface (Model B). In addition, both failure modes are highly sensitive to the friction angle of the weak layer and the shear strength of waste disposal, and moderately sensitive to the heap height, the dip angle and cohesion of the weak layer, while the toe cutting has limited effect on the slope stability. Moreover, the sensitivity to the excavation of the ground depends on the location of the weak layer and failure mode.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.16 no.2 s.48
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• pp.189-199
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• 2006

This paper presents a field study of the stability of slope collapsed during road construction and proposes a reasonable countermeasure if the current slope is unstable. As a result of slope investigation, it was found that the slope includes five tension cracks and the sliding surface is started from the tension crack and propagated the surface soil layer through weathered rock layer. The slope stability analyses are conducted in case of dry and rainfall seasons. The results indicate that the slope is unstable status. A reinforcement method of slope failure should be selected according to the scale of failure. That is, the scale of slope failure, which is classified small, middle and large size determines the reinforcement method of slope. Since the slope interested in this study is large size failure slope, the reinforcement method to control slope failure is selected stabilizing piles, and seed spray and drainage of surface waterare also selected to remain the factor of safety. The SLOPILE (Ver. 3.0) program is applied in order to do stability analysis of slope reinforced by piles. As the result of analysis, the slope reinforced by a row of piles shows the stable state. It is clearly confirmed that the stabilizing of piles can improve the stability of slope.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1489-1498
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• 2013

The monolithically coupled finite element analysis for a deformable unsaturated soil slope is performed to investigate the effect of antecedent rainfall which is assumed by initial conditions varying degree of saturation (36, 51, 77%) in finite element analysis. The distributions of matric suction and deformation on slope surface obtained from numerical simulation show the instability of antecedent rainfall-induced unsaturated soil slope. Moreover, the numerical analysis using Drucker-Prager model can be checked if a soil slope has reached failure (trial failure criterion $f^{tr}$ >0, plastic behavior) or not (trial failure criterion $f^{tr}$ < 0, elastic behavior). It is found that displacement of slope surface layer increases and the matric suction on soil slope decreases with an increase of initial degree of saturation by antecedent rainfall. Especially, the matric suction of the soil slope in dry condition (S=36%) rapidly decreases rather than that in wet condition (S=51%) at the same rainfall duration. The results of the trial failure criterion ($f^{tr}$ > 0) show slope instability in the toe region and surface of the slopes.