12.

1 Introduction
 Sudden ground displacement during earthquakes induces large inertial forces in embankments.

 There are several recorded cases in the past that show severe damage or collapse of earth
Chapter 12 embankment slopes due to earthquakes-induced vibration.

 Damage of Earth Embankment Slopes

Seismic Stability of Earth • Flow Slides (Due to liquefaction (Ch. 10) of saturated lenses of sand deposits)

• Collapse or deformation of dry or dense slopes in sand

Embankments
 In this Chapter, it will be assumed
that the embankment soils experience
very little reduction in strength due to
cyclic loading.

 This is what generally known as

"Inertial Stability Analysis".

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Kumamoto Earthquake, 2016, Japan

 There are several forms of failure for a slope under earthquake forces:
• Deformation concentrated in a narrow zone with a definite slip surface (a.)
• Deformation without slip surface (b.)
• As a plane in cohesionless slopes (c.)
12.2 Free Vibration of Earth Embankments (Briefly)
 For a proper evaluation of the seismic stability of earth embankments, it is necessary to have
some knowledge of the vibration of embankments due to earthquakes, with some simplifying
assumptions.
 Shear Slice Theory (Mononobe, Takata, and Matumura, 1963; Seed and Martin, 1966)

 Assumptions:
1. The earth embankment is infinitely long; (L > 4H)
2. The foundation material is rigid;
3. The width-to-height ratio of the embankment is large. This means that the deformation of the
embankment is due only to shear;
4. Shear stress on any horizontal plane is uniform.

 Forces acting on strip:

 Shear 1, Shear 2, Inertia

Deformation of earth embankments

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4 Free vibration of an earth embankment
  From the calculation: 12.3 Forced Vibration of an Earth Embankment (Briefly)

 Equations of Motion (Ch.2):

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Forced vibration of an earth embankment

12.4 Velocity and Acceleration Spectra (DELETE) 12.5 Approximate Method for Evaluation of Maximum Crest
Acceleration and Natural Period of Embankments

 Makdisi and Seed (1979) have presented a simplified method for estimating the maximum crest
acceleration [üz(max) at z = 0] and the natural period of embankment.

 According to their theory, approximate Maximum Crest Acceleration is:

Acceleration response spectra for El Centro where San is the spectral acceleration (see section 12.4)
Velocity response spectra for El Centro (1940) earthquake (from Seed, 1975)
(1940) earthquake (from Seed, 1975)

 Makdisi and Seed (1979) presented a Step-

by-Step procedure to find [üa(0)]max

7 8 Approximate method for evaluation of

maximum crest acceleration
  Makdisi and Seed (1979) Step-by-Step Procedure:  Example 12.1 (Makdisi and Seed, 1979) method to find Max. crest acceleration)

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12.6 Fundamental Concepts of Stability Analysis

There are generally two main methods to evaluate the stability of embankment slopes:

1. Pseudostatic Method
2. Determination of Displacement of Slopes

 Until the mid-1960s, most of the earth embankment slopes were analyzed by pseudostatic method.

 According to this method, a trial circular failure surface ABC with its center at O, is chosen. The
forces acting on trail failure surface are as follows:
a. W: weight of the wedge
b. khW : which accounts for the effect of an earthquake on the trial wedge. The factor kh is the average coefficient of horizontal acceleration.
c. s: Resisting force per unit area, which is the shear strength of the soil acting along the trial failure surface, ABC.

 Factor of Safety:

 The procedure repeated with several trial failure surfaces, and

If the minimum value of Fs ≥ 1, the slope is stable.

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  The second method that has gained acceptance more recently is determination of the displacement  Average Value of kh: some discussion on page 560 and 561 of the book.
of slopes due to earthquakes.

 The stability of the slope will depend on the shear strength
of the soil and also the kh.
 The factor of safety of the soil mass located above the most
critical surface ABCD will become equal to 1 when kh
becomes equal to ky. This value of kh = ky may be defined
as the coefficient of yield acceleration.
 Now if we plot of the horizontal acceleration with time to
which the soil wedge ABCD is being subjected:
 Yield Strength
 In the analysis of stability for earth embankments, it is important to make proper selection of
the yield strength of soil to determine the shear strength parameters.
 The yield strength is defined as:
The maximum stress level below which the material exhibits a near-elastic behavior when
subjected to cyclic stresses of numbers and frequencies similar to those induced by
earthquake shaking.

• At time t = t1, the horizontal acceleration is kyg

• Between time t = t1 to t = t2 , the velocity of the sliding
wedge will increase.
• This velocity can be determined by integration of the
shaded area.
• The velocity will gradually decrease and become equal to
zero at t = t3.
• Displacement of soil wedge can now be determined by
integration of area under velocity vs. time plot between
t = t1 and t = t3.
It can be seen that under 100 cycles of stress, which
amounts 80% of static undrained strength, the material
behaves in a near-elastic manner.
However, when 10 cycles of stress, which amounts to
95% of static undrained strength, is applied, substantially
large permanent deformation is observed.
Hence, the yield strength of this soil is about 90% of
its static undrained strength. (for an earthquake with 10
cycles)

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13 Concept of cyclic yield strength

12.7 Clay Slopes (ϕ = 0 Condition) - Koppula’s Analysis

Pseudostatic Analysis___________________________________
 Koppula 1984 performed a number of analytical analyses, and following the principles
Koppula’s Analysis - Clay Slopes (ϕ = 0 Condition) - section 12.7 Pseudostatic analysis and the equilibrium of the forces, suggested the below solution for
the minimum FS:
Majumdar’s Analysis - Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - section 12.8 Forces:

a. W: weight of the wedge

Prater’s Analysis - Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - section 12.9 b. khW : which accounts for the effect of an earthquake
c. cu: undrained cohesion

Conventional Method of Slices - Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - section 12.10

Determination of Displacement of Slopes __________________

Simplified Procedure for Estimation of Earthquake- Induced Deformation - section 12.11

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  Koppula's solved and simplified the above equations and introduced the two stability
numbers, N1 and N2. (N and N can be find from graphs)
1 2

 He also calculated the minimum FS for all of the failure surfaces as:

 Keep in mind that in this method:

• Failure surface is circular
• Undrained Cohesion may increase with depth z measured from the top of the slope

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12.8 Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - Majumdar’s Analysis  Keeping that in mind, by trial and error, the minimum FS of the slope can be calculated.

 Majumdar (1971) expanded Taylor’s analysis of slope by taking into consideration the horizontal
 This method is a modification of the Taylor's earthquake forces.
method (1937) to account for the earthquake.
 In order to determine the factor of safety for a given slope, the following step-by-step procedure
 Taylor's method did not consider for earthquake
can be applied
loads.

 The details of Taylor's method can be found in Soil

Mechanics books such as Das 2017

 In summary:

Taylor's method says when the FS with respect to friction, and the FS with
19 respect to cohesion are equal, they will be equal to the FS with respect to the
strength as well 20
 12.9 Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - Prater’s Analysis
 Prater (1979) has analyzed slopes with c - φ soils to determine the yield horizontal acceleration,
which is defined as the threshold horizontal acceleration, kh = ky, acting upon a sliding mass,
above which permanent deformation occurs.

 In other words, Prater's analysis would find the minimum kh that will cause permanent
deformation in the slope.

 Equilibrium of the moments:

* From Majumdar:

** From Taylor:

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12.10 Slopes with c - ϕ Soil - Conventional Method of Slices

 In the analysis for the stability of slopes provided in previous sections, it is assumed that the soil
is homogeneous.

 However, in a given slope, layered soil can be encountered.

 The method of slices is a general method that can easily account for the change of γ , c, and φ in
the soil layers.

 Writing the equilibrium of the forces in one of the slices, and then by extend that to all of the
slices, the Strength Factor of Safety can be found as:

• This can easily account for a layered

system of soil

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 12.11 Simplified Procedure for Estimation of Earthquake-
Induced Deformation
 Makdisi and Seed (1978) developed a simplified step-by-step procedure for estimation of the
deformation.

 When this procedure is applied, it is assumed that the shear strength of the soil does not change during
shaking. Hence this method cannot be used in cases where there is pore pressure buildup.

 Procedure:

1. Determine the height of the embankment (H) and the shear strength parameters of the soil (c and
φ).
2. Determine the maximum crest acceleration [üa(0)] and the first natural a max period (T1 = 2π/ω )
by using the method described in Section 12.5.
3. With reference to Fig. 12.34, choose the critical section likely to deform and determine the
magnitude of kh(max)g/[üa(0)]max from Figure 12.34. Note that kh(max) is the coefficient of the
maximum average horizontal acceleration for a given value of z/H. The concept of the coefficient
of average acceleration was explained in Section 12.6. Now determine the magnitude of kh(max)g.
4. Determine the yield acceleration—that is, the acceleration kyg (see Section 12.9) for which the
sliding mass has Fs = 1.
5. Determine [ky/kh(max)] and the magnitude of the earthquake (M). With these values, go to Fig.
12.35 to obtain [U/kh(max)gT1] (in seconds). With the known values of kh(max)g (Step 3) and T1
(Step 2), the magnitude U can be determined. Note that U is the deformation in the horizontal
direction.
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