Development and application of a combined soil water-slope stability model

Abstract

Summary A general one-dimensional soil water infiltration scheme is coupled to an infinite slope stability analysis model to illustrate the potential of exploring the impact of soil suction and parameter variability in stability analysis. The primary data base used for this investigation is published data for the Mid-Levels area of Hong Kong. The model is used to show that current procedures in the estimation of c′ and φ′ derived from strength tests do not perhaps accurately reflect the strength of the residual soils examined. More generally, the desirability of two-dimensional modelling in the context of both soil suction/pore pressure models and stability analysis is discussed, but the parameterization and validation problems of such a scheme are considered to be immense.