RAPID EVALUATION OF THE CRITICAL SLIP SURFACE IN SLOPE STABILITY PROBLEMS

Existing approaches for locating the critical slip surfaces are briefly reviewed. A number of techniques and strategies are proposed whereby the efficiency and robustness of some of the existing approaches can be enhanced. A new solution scheme is also developed for rapid calculation of the factor of safety. The new solution scheme requires only one level of iterations in contrast to the conventional solution scheme which involves two levels of iterations. It is also applicable to a variety of stability models. A new compound iterative procedure is developed whereby the factor of safety can be calculated to a high accuracy within a few iterations. This reduces greatly the total computer time required for locating the critical slip surfaces.