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Study of Slope Failure due to Rainfall: A Comparison Between Experiment and Simulation
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2006
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EngineeringRock SlopeSlope FailureSeepage BehaviorEarth ScienceSoil MechanicGeotechnical EngineeringSlope StabilityErosion PredictionGreen House EffectHydrological ModelingNumerical SimulationsHydrometeorologySurface RunoffGeographyEngineering GeologyHydrologySoil ErosionDroughtCivil EngineeringGeomechanicsComparison Between ExperimentFlood Risk Management
The green house effect has brought change in climate all over the world. In Japan many slope failures due to rainfall often occur in the rainy season. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the mechanical behavior of unsaturated soil in order to clarify the slope failure mechanisms due to heavy rainfall. In this paper a soil tank test on sandy soil called Shirasu was carried out to investigate the failure mechanism of an unsaturated slope due to the increase in degree of saturation. The numerical simulations using 2D unsaturated-saturated seepage analysis and slope stability analysis is then performed to compare with the experiment in order to prove the validity of numerical simulations at the model scale. It is found from our research results that the proposed models can be used to simulate the seepage behavior of unsaturated Shirasu and to estimate the change in safety factor of the slope with elapsed time due to rainfall.