Assessing the deformation and stability of a slope using an improved strength reduction method

In the strength reduction method (SRM), the factors of safety (FOS) and the solid surfaces are merely considered in the stability analysis, but the deformation of a slope is ignored because the ideal elasto-plastic model is adopted in the numerical simulation. This paper develops an improved SRM which adopts the variable modulus elasto-plastic model to analyse the stability and deformation of the slope. The improved method cannot only simulate the progressive process of the slope failure but also obtain the real deformation of the slope. Using an improved method to analyse the homogeneous slope, the results indicate that the slope usually occurs a large displacement before the slope is destroyed, and the deformation is stepwise. Meanwhile, the stability of the slope is decreasing stepwise too. Compared with the SRM and the local dynamic SRM (LDSRM), the calculated results of the horizontal displacement for the improved method are 69.8% smaller than that of SRM and 67.8% larger than that of LDSRM when the slope is under the state of critical failure. Considering the merit of the improved method, the method could potentially be used to analyse the deformation state of a landslide and to predict landslide.