A Comparative Study on Slope Stability of Analysis Methods

In practice, general limit equilibrium methods are used in the analysis of slope stability because of its relative simplification. The actual failure surface based on limit equilibrium method, however, hardly coincide with the analytical values, and neither consider the settlement of slope, nor recognize stress concentration during failure. On the otherhand, the advantage of the finite difference method consist in its facility to take into account settlement of slope, stress concentration and anisotropy of the materials. Four failure site data and two types of hypothetical slopes with 10 different slope angles are analysed, and the results of two analytical methods are compared. The safety factor and failure mode based on two analytical methods show that the above results are similar in the cases of failure sites and unstable slopes cases. In the cases of the relatively stable slopes, however, the results of limit equilibrium method are higher value of safety factor than those of finite difference method. And it is believed that the finite difference method can provide much significant information about the slope behaviour on the prefailure stress-strain mechanism.