Modified Slip Surface Stress Method for Potential Slip Mass Stability Analysis

A modified slip surface stress method is proposed with the concept of vector sum and rigorous force analysis. Theoretically, the proposed method could degenerate into the existing methods by adding the corresponding assumptions. Through five typical slope cases, comparisons are made among the Factor of Safety (FoS) calculated by the proposed method and others. Results show that the proposed method could evaluate slopes at the limit state. Moreover, the proposed method is capable to calculate the FoS of the potential slip mass for both homogeneous and heterogeneous cases with regular or irregular slip surface in both two- and three-dimension spaces. Also, the proposed method could give the potential slip direction of a slope, which is useful for the design of measures to reinforce the slope.