Safety concepts for slope stability

Abstract

The use of partial safety factors has, with the adaptation of the Eurocodes, become the dominant safety concept, also for slope stability in most European countries. The article discusses the partial safety factor approach based on considerations of uncertainties involved and consequences of failure. Partial safety factors are calculated based on reliability theory, following first the present ideas of the Eurocodes, and second an alternative approach aimed to improve the shortcomings in the code. In the alternative approach, all uncertainties are placed on the material safety factor, which are then calculated for different target reliability index values. Two simple examples are presented, where the differences of the two approaches are outlined.