Advanced seismic slope stability analysis

The objective of this study was to present an advanced methodology for assessing seismic slope stability by taking into account the uncertainties related to the main input parameters. The methodology was applied on a real landslide in order to show the advantages of using the proposed procedure and establish the baseline trends of dynamic response and calculated permanent seismic displacements. It involves the following steps: preliminary analysis, probabilistic static and seismic factor of safety analysis, and permanent seismic displacement analysis. Estimating post-failure maximum seismic deformation of landslide mass and sounding properties is the most important part of this study. It involves both Newmark sliding block method and continuum mechanics approach, applied for characteristic set of input values in order to have more accurate assessment of slope performance and determine the relative importance of input parameters. The results of the analysis showed the benefits of using the proposed step-by-step methodology. The obtained difference in the results between the two methods depends strongly on the set input data for a particular analysis.