Experimental and discrete element numerical analysis of side slope instability induced by fissure water underlying impervious bed

Abstract

When the sliding mass contains impervious bed, rainfall can infiltrate into mountain via crevices and form higher artesian aquifer at impervious bed inferior. This will decrease slip resistance and increase sliding forces of the sliding mass, thus lowering the safety factor, and inducing landslide disasters. In this paper, a landslide experimental apparatus is designed for experimental studies on the mechanism of this type of landslides. Meanwhile, the non-dimensional parameters in the model experiment are taken into account using dimensional analysis. The experimental results show that (1) the ratio of the cleft water pressure to the overlying pressure is a crucial parameter affecting the stability of the slope; (2) when the shut-in pressure reaches 80% of the normal component of the pressure on the slip surface made up of rock and soil, landslide will occur; (3) the whole slope will start to slide when the shut-in pressure is equal to the normal component of the pressure formed by the overlying rock and soil on the upper 30% area. In this article, a discrete element method simulation is used to investigate the influence of cleft water pressure and shearing strength on the landslide stability. It can be concluded that the critical value of Ccr, φcr, which determines the slide mass stability, increases with the increase of the water pressure; if the water pressure reaches a high level, the stability of the slide mass depends mainly on C, while the influence of φ becomes smaller than C. Copyright by Science in China Press 2005.