Reliability analysis of a vertical cut in unsaturated soil using sequential Gaussian simulation

Document Type : Article

Authors

Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shiraz Univ. of Technology 7194684471, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

This paper proposed a practical approach for reliability analysis of vertical cut in unsaturated soil. This approach extends the application of conditional random field into the unsaturated soils. A real case study of vertical cut was considered and three boreholes were drilled to investigate the subsurface layers. The Sequential Gaussian Simulation (SGS) was used to generate conditional random field with considering the possible fluctuation of soil properties between known data. The undersampled parameters were estimated by cokriging method, while Kriging method was used to estimate other stochastic parameters. In order to verify the efficienty of simulations, it was checked that all data were reproduced at their locations and the input semivariogram model was reproduced within acceptable fluctuations. To predict the unsaturated soil behaviour, the Soil Water Retention Curve (SWRC) was estimated using physico-empirical method with the aim of determining suction stress for finite element stability analysis. The vertical cut was analyzed with and without considering suction. It was concluded that considering unsaturated condition shifts the mean of safety factor from the unsafe ranges to the safe ranges. It was illustrated that the number of known data effects the construction of conditional random fields and leads to different probability of failure.

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References

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Scientia Iranica
Volume 26, Issue 3
Transactions on Civil Engineering (A)
May and June 2019
Pages 1214-1231

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