LIMIT ANALYSIS VERSUS LIMIT EQUILIBRIUM FOR SLOPE STABILITY

This paper compares conventional limit-equilibrium results with rigoro us upper and lower bound solutions for the stability of simple earth s lope. The bounding solutions presented in this paper are obtained by u sing two newly developed numerical procedures that are based on finite -element formulations of the bound theorems of limit analysis and line ar programming techniques. Although limit-equilibrium analysis is used widely in practice for estimating the stability of slopes, its use ma y sometimes lead to significant errors as both kinematic and static ad missibility are violated in the method. Because there are no exact sol utions available against which the results of limit-equilibrium analys is can be checked, the present bounding solutions can be used to bench mark the results of limit-equilibrium analysis. In addition, the lower bound solutions obtained also can be applied directly in practice bec ause they are inherently conservative.