Causes of Shallow Landslides of Expansive Soil Slopes

Abstract

Shallow landslides often occur in the vast majority of expansive soil cutting slopes during or after rainfall, resulting in newly-built highway traffic disruption, ecological environment destruction along roads, and high costs required for repair. The actual causes of shallow landslides are still unclear. Therefore, analyses of test data are used to study the attenuation law of the shear strength of expansive soil under the dry-wet cycle conditions. The shear strength of surface soil was found to have a nonlinear property resulting from the natural expansion soil. In addition, shallow landslides of expansive soil slopes in dry-wet cycles are analyzed. The serious attenuation of cohesion was found to be the main cause of shallow landslides in expansive soil slopes. Therefore, the measured nonlinear strength parameters of soil samples should be applied to analyze the stability of expansive soil slope, the results of which can be consistent with the calculation result of actual conditions.