Systematic slope stability assessment through deformation field monitoring

Abstract

Field monitoring is frequently carried out during excavations and other geotechnical activities and provides additional information during the execution of a construction project. The interpretation of field monitoring data is often obscured by measurement noise and disturbance, and a systematic approach to assess both the quality and implications of the field monitoring data is very helpful in geotechnical practice. The possibility to infer practical conclusions from the field monitoring data depends on the type of field measurements, especially in monitoring of the stability of slopes. Pore pressure measurements can serve as a direct measurement of utilized soil strength for a slope, while deformation measurements are significantly more ambiguous and complicates the interpretation. The assessment of slope stability through field monitoring of deformations requires inverse or back analysis of the soil properties, followed by a forward analysis of the resulting slope stability. Such an inverse or back analysis is frequently influenced by non-uniqueness of the material properties and the stability of the measurement data. Systematic approaches to inverse or back analysis have been demonstrated in the scientific literature, but the practical use of these methods is not entirely straight-forward. The current paper presents a case study of systematic slope stability assessment through field measurements of deformations with a review of the field monitoring programme, numerical simulations of deformations, and a simplified approach to back analysis of the soil parameters. The excavation of a slope in an urban environment including layers of organic clay covered with highly heterogeneous gravel fill is used as an example of geotechnical back analysis. The aim is to elucidate some of the challenges in geotechnical back analysis while providing some practical solutions for practice.