Stochastic seismic slope stability assessment using polynomial chaos expansions combined with relevance vector machine

This paper presents probabilistic assessment of seismically-induced slope displacements considering uncertainties of seismic ground motions and soil properties.A stochastic ground motion model representing both the temporal and spectral non-stationarity of earthquake shakings and a three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism are integrated to assess Newmark-type slope displacements.A new probabilistic approach that incorporates machine learning in metamodeling technique is proposed,by combining relevance vector machine with polynomial chaos expansions(RVM-PCE).Compared with other PCE methods,the proposed RVM-PCE is shown to be more effective in estimating failure probabilities.The sensitivity and relative influence of each random input parameter to the slope displacements are discussed.Finally,the fragility curves for slope displacements are established for sitespecific soil conditions and earthquake hazard levels.The results indicate that the slope displacement is more sensitive to the intensities and strong shaking durations of seismic ground motions than the frequency contents,and a critical Arias intensity that leads to the maximum annual failure probabilities can be identified by the proposed approach.

Predicting seismic permanent displacement of soil walls under surcharge based on limit analysis approach

Seismic permanent displacement of the soil walls plays an important role in design of these structures. Due to the increase in growth of urban areas and the limitations in use of flat grounds, many structures are built near slopes and retaining walls. During earthquakes, these structures can apply an additional surcharge on the wall. The intensity and location of the surcharge is of considerable importance on the seismic displacements of the soil wall. In this study, by using the limit analysis and upper bound theorem, seismic permanent displacement of the soil wall under surcharge has been analyzed. Thus, a formulation is presented for calculating the yield acceleration and seismic displacement for different surcharge conditions. The effect of seismic acceleration, surcharge intensity, its location and soil properties is investigated. A parameter called the ＂displacement coefficient＂ is proposed, and is a potential modification for Newmark’s sliding-block method.

Application and Validation of a Multi-block Constitutive Model at Landslides of the Wenchuan Earthquake

A multi-block model and a corresponding computer program have been developed which predict the kinematics of landslides.Furthermore,a unique event for studying different models simulating the triggering and movement of landslides is the 2008Wenchuan earthquake in the mountainous region in Sichuan Province of China,which caused a large number of rapid landslides.The purpose of the paper is two-fold:(a)to propose and incorporate into the multi-block model constitutive relations predicting soil response along slip surfaces,and(b)to apply the multi-block model with the constitutive relations at landslides triggered by the Wenchuan earthquake.The proposed constitutive equations predict the shape of the shear stress-displacement response measured in ring shear tests.In the application,four landslides caused by the Wenchuan earthquake were considered.Only in one of these landslides the shear resistance-displacement response along the slip surface has been measured in laboratory tests.At this landslide,the triggering and movement of the landslide was predicted.In the other landslides,back analyses were performed and it was observed that the multi-block model predicted reasonably well the final configuration of all slides.In addition,as the measured and back-estimated total friction angle of all landslides was less than 180,and the materials along the slip surface were sandy,it is inferred that some,or all of the slip surface during these slides was sheared in an undrained manner and excess pore pressures generated during sliding played a key role in the triggering and movement of these landslides.Concluding,the paper(A)proposed and validated a multi-block constitutive model which can be applied to predict the triggering and movement of earthquake-induced slides and(B)by analyzing four landslides of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake,it concludes that some,or all of the slip surface during these slides,was sheared in an undrained manner and excess pore pressures generated during sliding played a key role in the triggering and movement of these landslides.

Efficiency of scalar and vector intensity measures for seismic slope displacements

Ground motion intensity measures are usually used to predict the earthquake-induced displacements in earth dams,soil slopes and soil structures.In this study,the efficiency of various single ground motion intensity measures(scalar IMs)or a combination of them(vector IMs)are investigated using the PEER-NGA strong motion database and an equivalent-linear sliding-mass model.Although no single intensity measure is efficient enough for all slope conditions,the spectral acceleration at 1.5 times of the initial slope period and Arias intensity of the input motion are found to be the most efficient scalar IMs for flexible slopes and stiff slopes respectively.Vector IMs can incorporate different characteristics of the ground motion and thus significantly improve the efficiency over a wide range of slope conditions.Among various vector IMs considered,the spectral accelerations at multiple spectral periods achieve high efficiency for a wide range of slope conditions.This study provides usefiul guidance to the development of more efficient empirical prediction models as well as the ground motion selection criteria for time domain analysis of seismic slope displacements.