Limit Analysis of Slope Stability by Rigid Finite-Element Method and Linear Programming Considering Rotational Failure

Abstract

The authors present a numerical limit analysis on the slope stability in this paper using the rigid finite-element method (RFEM). The novelty of this study is the consideration of the rotational component of the centroid velocity for each element, as well as a generalized overturning failure criterion governing the element rotation. By combining the generalized rotation failure criterion with the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, the RFEM-based upper and lower bound limit analysis is formulated as a typical primal and dual linear programming problem and is solved effectively by a primal-dual interior-point method. The proposed formulation and methodology are validated by three classical soil or rock slope stability problems. Numerical results confirm the necessity of considering the rotation mechanism in RFEM-based limit analysis for slope stability in order to achieve realistic predictions.