3D limit surcharge for inclined nailed slopes subjected to earthquake and pore water pressure

Soil nail is an extensively adopted reinforcement measure to improve the slope stability and prevent landslides, yet few studies have explicitly assessed the stability of inclined nailed slopes with simultaneous consideration of earthquakes and pore water pressures. The aim of this study is to propose an analytical approach to fill this research gap. In the proposed method, the 3D discretization failure model is adopted to describe the 3D failure characteristic of slopes, the modified pseudo-dynamic (MPD) approach is adopted to describe the spatial and temporal variations of seismic loads in the slope, and a simplified approach is adopted to calculate the pore water pressure. Then, based on the upper-bound limit analysis (UBLA) method, the 3D limit surcharge and the 3D limit failure surface are determined to check the slope stability with the aid of a hybrid optimization algorithm. Comparisons with existing analytical values and numerical results show that the developed method is an effective approach to study the 3D stability of inclined nailed slopes subjected to earthquakes and pore water pressures. The parametric analysis is finally conducted to analyze the influence of slope geometries, earthquake and soil parameters, pore water pressure, and nail reinforcements on the slope stability.