Influence of Slope Geometry on Stability of Clayey Soil Slopes

Abstract

Currently, climate change has several negative impacts on the worldwide environment. One of them is land sliding due to rainfall precipitation. Commonly, mountainous areas have a high possibility of having such consequences. Unsaturated soil characterization is presented in this paper to demonstrate that the shifting of ground occurs at the surfaces of any slopes. The paper presents the simulation analysis on clayey soil slopes under extreme rainfall in Kazakhstan. The different slope heights and angles are selected to perform seepage and stability analysis in GeoStudio software. The results show that the slope is prone to failure due to the lower safety factor. It means the driving force is increasing during rainfall due to the increase in pore water pressures. As a result, the shear strength of the soil decrease. According to the results of the seepage analysis, the pore-water pressure has increased to almost 80 kPa at the mid-slope for each simulation. It leads to a decrease in suction and shear strength. The change of a factor of safety for the gentlest slope with 27 degrees angle is the lowest for 10 m slope height and the highest for 30 m slope height, whereas the change of safety factor for a slope with 45 degrees angle (9%) is almost the same for all slope heights. In other words, the factor of safety tends to reduce in all simulation cases, which confirms the loss of strength of soil due to a large amount of infiltration into the ground.