Exploiting excavation-induced displacement for slope heterogeneity characterization and stability analysis

Slope displacement data is valuable but underexplored in current slope stability analysis. This study combines a SimSLE-based displacement back analysis and the strength reduction technique to exploit excavation-induced displacement for slope heterogeneity characterization and stability analysis. Numerically synthesized, undrained slopes are used as examples to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Results demonstrate that the approach is valid. Displacement data can significantly improve the identification of slip zone and slope stability analysis. Displacement information, affected by the slope stability state, only captures heterogeneities of shear strength within the plastic area. The accuracy of slope stability analysis, including displacement data and the required displacement sampling density, depends on the mean, the variance, and the correlation scale of shear strength. The less development of slip zone or the multiple failure modes associated with the mean of shear strength decreases the accuracy of the slope stability analysis via displacement data. Increasing the displacement sampling density improves little for the former and is necessary for the latter. The large variance and the small correlation scale of shear strength further increase the difficulty of slope stability analysis and its required sampling density. Practically, the proper displacement sampling density for slope stability analysis is suggested.