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An accurate estimation of the lateral force is an important key point for the stability analysis, because
the lateral force influences both pile and slope stabilities. Therefore, overestimation of the lateral forces
on the pile will naturally lead to conservative pile design and un-conservative slope stability design and
vice versa. This is because the estimated lateral loads are used as extra resisting force(s) on slope
stability calculations due to the pile reaction. In this paper, 2 different methods of lateral force
calculations namely plastic deformation and visco-plastic flow are obtained on a pile that installed into
slope which is susceptible to failure. First, the case of a slope without piles is considered and the
methods are then used to calculate the safety factor for the slope. Then, the stability of slopes
reinforced with piles is analyzed. Expressions are derived allowing the force needed to increase the
safety factor to a desired value and the most suitable location of piles within the slope to be evaluated.
Key words: Lateral soil movement, soil-pile interaction, finite difference, slope stability, safety factor.
INTRODUCTION
Failures of mass movements often result in extensive applying the ordinary slice method. To calculate the resis-
property damage and loss of human life. It is recognized ting moment due to the piles, Ito et al. (1979) proposed
that ensuring the stability of both natural and man-made the use of the theoretical equation, derived previously by
slopes continues to be a fundamental issue in geotechni- Ito and Matsui (1975), to evaluate the lateral force acting
cal engineering. There is no universally accepted method on a row of piles due to soil movement.
for the prevention or correction of landslides. Each slide A similar approach was developed by Lee et al. (1995)
is unique and should be considered on the basis of in which Bishop's simplified method (Bishop, 1955) was
unique inherent characteristics. employed to find the critical sliding surface for the slope
Stabilization of a slope may depend on a number of as well as the driving moment and resisting moment due
factors such as; its geometry, surface and groundwater to soil shearing resistance. These forces were calculated
conditions, strength of materials and the reason for stabi- using a procedure based on the boundary element
lization. A number of techniques have been developed to method.
stabilize slopes considering the above mentioned condi- Hassiotis et al. (1997) have extended the friction circle
tions (Abramson et al., 1996). method to incorporate the pile reaction in slope stability
Piles have been used successfully in many situations in analysis. The Ito and Matsui equation (1975) has been
order to stabilize slopes or to improve slope stability (Ito used to evaluate the lateral force that the failing soil mass
and Matsui, 1975; Anagnastopoulos et al., 1991; exerts on a row of piles.
Popescu, 1991; Poulos, 1995; Chen and Poulos, 1997 Ausilio et al. (2001) have used the kinematic approach
and Won et al., 2005) and numerous methods have been of limit analysis for the stability of slopes that are rein-
developed for the analysis of piled slopes. forced with piles. The case of a slope without piles is first
The limit equilibrium method was used by Ito et al. considered, and a solution is proposed to determine the
(1979) to deal with the problem of the stability of slopes safety factor of the slope, which is defined as a reduction
containing piles. In this approach the safety factor of the coefficient for the strength parameters of the soil. Then,
piled slope was defined as the ratio of the resisting mo- the stability of a slope containing piles is analyzed. To
ment to the overturning moment acting on the potentially account for the presence of the piles, it is assumed that a
unstable soil mass. The driving moment and the resisting lateral force and a moment are applied at the depth of the
moment due to soil shearing resistance were obtained potential sliding surface. For simplicity, the effect of pore
Firat 843
water pressure on slope stability is not considered. result of strain-softening caused by the movement in a
The influence of the one row of pile groups on the sta- potential landslide. For this reason it is assumed that the
bility of the weathered slope was investigated by Jeong et state of plastic equilibrium occurs only in the soil just
al. (2003) based on an analytical study and a numerical around the piles (Figure 1), satisfying the Mohr-Coulomb
analysis. An uncoupled analysis, in which the pile yield criterion. Therefore, the lateral force acting on the
response and slope stability are considered separately, pile may be estimated neglecting the change of equili-
was performed by quantifying the load transfer of passive brium condition of the whole slope. When the stress
pile groups subjected to lateral soil movements in slope. distribution in the soil AEBBEA is considered, the fric-
Recently, Martin and Chen (2005) have used displace- tional forces on surfaces AEB and AEB are neglected.
ment method to evaluate the response of piles caused by Therefore, a theoretical equation for the lateral force p
an embankment slope in a translational failure mode, per unit length may be given as follows:
induced by a weak layer or a liquefied layer beneath the
embankment. The analysis includes the kinematic p = Ac
1
exp
D1 D2
N tan tan
+ 2 N
12
tan 1
loading acting on the bridge piles caused by lateral soil N tan D2 8 4
movements and the effects of spatial variation of soil
displacement on the response of piles. 2 tan + 2 N 1 2 + N 1 2 2 tan + 2 N 1 2 + N 1 2 1 2
The interaction behaviour between pile and soil is a + 12
c D1 12
2 D 2 N
N tan + N 1 N tan + N 1
complicated phenomenon due to its 3-dimensional nature
and can be influenced by many factors, such as the cha-
racteristics of deformation and the strength parameters of (N 12
tan + N 1)
z
D1 D1 D2
+ D1 exp N tan tan + D2
both pile and soil. In addition, movement of the failure N D2 D2 8 4
mass (landslide) involves a complicated mechanism. It is
recognized that the pile design for slope stabilization is (1)
too simplified for the complicated event. Nevertheless,
there is no precise design method for stabilizing piles so Where N =tan 2 [( 4)+( 2)] and
as to utilize effectively the pile effect in slope stabilization. (N
12
tan + N 1 )
In fact, many slopes failed or conti-nuously moved even D1
A = D1
after the installation of stabilizing piles (Ito et al., 1982). D2
In this paper three different methods of lateral force
estimations have been identified. 2 of these methods are Hence, the total corresponding lateral force induced per
coded to provide predictive numerical values for the unit length of the pile due to the plastically deforming soil
lateral forces on piles installed for stabilizing slopes. Al- layer will be obtained by the integration of Equation (1)
though historically there are different methods for lateral along the soil depth layer (or until a critical slip surface).
force estimations, only the developments due to Ito and In the case of a purely frictional soil (putting the
Matsui (1975) and De Beer and Carpentier (1977) and cohesion c = 0 in Equation (1) the lateral force, p, per unit
current study are presented. Soil reinforcement by means length may be obtained by integrating Equation (2) along
of piles bored through the sliding mass to the stable the depth, z:
underlying soil is often used as a countermeasure to sta-
bilize landslides. With this case the following design steps (N 12
tan + N 1 )
z
applied; Evaluating the total shear force needed to D1 D1 D2
p= D1 exp N tan tan + D2
increase the safety factor of the slope by the desired N D2 D2 8 4
value and calculating the maximum lateral force that each (2)
pile can receive from the sliding soil and transmits to the
stable underlying soil. In the case of a cohesive soil, the angle of friction may
be neglected that is, = 0. Therefore, the lateral force p
Forces on piles in soil undergoing lateral movement\ per unit length may be obtained as the function of depth
Ito and Matsui method as follows:
Ito and Matsui (1975) and Ito et al. (1979, 1982) have D1 D1 D2
p =c D1 3 log + tan 2 ( D1 D2 ) + z ( D1 D2 ) -
developed an analysis to show that piles placed in D2 D2 8
plastically deforming ground, such as landslide mass (3)
movement, can prevent further plastic deformations.
The theory proposed by the above authors, called the
theory of plastic deformation, estimates the lateral force De Beer and Carpentier method
between the 2 extremes of zero and large landslide mass
movement. It is assumed that no reduction in shear The theory of plastic deformation was first proposed by
resistance along the sliding surface has taken place as a Ito and Matsui (1975) and later discussed by De Beer and
Sci. Res. Essays 844
Pile
[(/4)(/2)]
F B
D
[(/8)+(/4)]
C
=[(/4)+(/2)]
E A
y
D1 D2
0 x
Direction of
deformation
E' A'
C'
D'
F' B'
Pile
Figure 1. Plastic state of soil just around piles (Ito and Matsui, 1975).
, j
Far field
Ro
a
Flow velocity y
0
=0 V
(V) x
r
[ ( ) ( )]
j =1
= A e 3 4e e + B (1 2 )e e sin (21)
Where the derivative term was calculated using the
= 4 [2 A (e
e ) B e ]sin (1 (
0 )) (22) second order forward difference approximation for a
quantity Z as:
Where the condition = 0 at = 0 has been enforced;
here
( Z (
)0 j = 4 Z 1 j Z 2 j 3 Z 0 j 2 d ) (28)
[
A = 1 2 (1 0 ) X 02 (1 + 0 ) ] (23) Noting that at = 0 and = ; and are both
zero, simplifies the calculation of force on the pile, p,
( )
B = X 02 1 A , X 0 = e 0 (24)
above.
Also the viscosities i j are set to a constant value appro- Comparison of forces for benchmark results
priate to the viscous model used (Frat et al., 2006).
Three different lateral force estimations are shown in
Since an iterative approach needs to be adopted, the
Figure 4 which illustrates the variation of the lateral force
following sequential steps were used:
on the pile versus the ratio D2/D1. It can be seen that the
visco-plastic flow displays a trend where lateral load
a) Set i0j and i0j as the initial guess values for i j predictions lie between the data given by Ito and Matsui
and i j . (1975), De Beer and Carpentier (1977). It is seen that in
addition to parametric variation of inter-pile distance,
b) Then calculate interior i1 j using Equation (8), where D2/D1, the mechanical properties of the flowing soil mass
2
has also been varied from y = 10 kN/m to 50 and then
the values are the updated currently available and
values, in a single sweep of a Gauss-Seidel procedure. 100. KONS (KONS = Vp) is a product of flow velocity
and plastic viscosity. The following numbers represent
c) Subsequently 01 j values are calculated using the relevant research work and can be found in the
Equation (9). legend of Figure 4;
d) Then calculate updated i j values for the whole flow
1) Represents De Beer and Carpentier (1977).
domain. 2) Represents Ito and Matsui in terms of passive earth
e) Test for convergence between iterations k and k+1 for pressure (1978).
a quantity Z i j as: 3) Represents Ito and Matsui in terms of active pressure
(1975).
Z ikj+1 Z ikj (1 + Z )< TolZ
k
ij (25) 4) Represents current study.
500
1=100 kN/m2
1=50 kN/m2
1=10 kN/m2
2=100 kN/m2
450 2=50 kN/m2
2=10 kN/m2
3=100 kN/m2
3=50 kN/m2
3=10 kN/m2
4=100 kN/m2
400 4=50 kN/m2
4=10 kN/m2
350
300
Force on the pile (kN/m)
250
200
150
100
50
3
GAM () = 20 kN/m
D1-D2= 0.30 m
z=5m
KONS = 5 kN/m
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
D2/D1
retaining structure such as a row of piles (Figure 5). The limit equilibrium method is the most widely used appro-
piles should be designed to provide the stabilizing force ach to analyze slope stability due to its simplicity of use.
needed to increase the safety factor to a selected value. Moreover, this method allows for the effect of seepage,
For the slope stability problem containing piles in a row, loading and general soil conditions without requiring
two separate analyses have been carried out in terms of additional computational efforts. Major criticism of the
slope and pile stability. In practical applications, the study limit equilibrium method is that it is generally based on
of a slope reinforced with piles is usually carried out by simplified assumptions and the results obtained from this
extending the methods commonly used for the stability method are, in the light of limit analysis, neither upper
analysis of slopes to incorporate the reaction force exer- bounds nor lower bounds on the true solution (Ausilio et
ted on the unstable soil mass by the piles. To date, the al., 2001).
Sci. Res. Essays 848
C
x
B
Slice boundary dx
dx
B
X+dX
Sliding
surface
E'+dE'
A
X Pw+dPw
Pw dW (y+dy)-(h+dh)
E'
Figure 5. Slope stability analysis containing piles in a row. (y-h)
(y-y't) dy
dS dPb
g
dN'
The slope instability can be analyzed by dividing resis-
ting moments/forces (either together or separately, since
Figure 6. Forces acting on a slice (Morgenstern and Price, 1965).
it depends on method of analysis used) and disturbing
moments/forces acting on the soil mass DBCAD, shown
in Figure 5. Due to pile installation, the extra resisting
force provided by piles at the plane AB is added to resis- Pm = Pp co --------------------------------- (29)
ting moments/forces within the parameters of normal
slope stability calculations. Pile stability may be analyzed Where co is greater than 1.0. In this research, Pp is
using forces acting on a single pile at the plane AB, as
shown in Figure 5. This force is used as an extra resisting scaled by the un-reinforced FOS of the slope where it is
force for the slope stability but reactively it is also used as then reinforced by a row of piles (i.e. co = FOS). This mo-
a design force to calculate pile integrity and stability. bilized force, Pm is used to evaluate stabilized FOS, but
When a row of piles is installed into the slope, the the total lateral force per unit length, p is still used to
factor of safety (FOS) changes due to the additional design the piles.
resisting force, Pp , provided by the piles. To evaluate this Two distinct methods of lateral load estimations above
were used to evaluate lateral loads on the pile in a row.
force per unit width of the failure mass, the total force With the piles in place and with the restraining forces of
may be integrated along the depth of the pile (until the piles against the sliding soil mass (Figure 5), a
reaching the slip surface). Then, the result, p, is divided second analysis was performed to find the new stabilized
by centre to centre distance, D1 where Pp = p D1 . FOS against sliding without changing the failure surface.
According to Ito and Matsui (1975), the force acting on The reinforced FOS values are given in Tables 1 and 2.
the slope is equal to Pp regardless of the state of the The case study was examined by two different mass
divisions namely method of slices (MOS) and Gauss
equilibrium of the slope. This force is added into the FOS
quadrature (GQ).
calculations. Nevertheless, an overestimation of the force
Pp may lead to un-conservative results in the design of
the slope. To remain on the safe margin, Hassiotis et al. Method of slices (MOS)
(1997) suggested the use of mobilized lateral force, Pm In this method, a possible failure slip surface is divided by
so that: vertical or inclined planes into a series of slices (Figure 6).
Firat 849
Table 2. Reinforced FOS values by using two different lateral load estimations
The width between slices can be equal or unequal and of to be evaluated numerically from a given number of
necessity each slice has a variable height, measured Gauss points. Gauss considered the problem of deter-
along the centre line. Using a sufficiently large number of mining the values of should be chosen in order to get
slices the base and top of each slice can be approxima- the greatest possible accuracy. In other words, how
ted to be a straight line. The potential slip surface is should one subdivided the interval (-1, +1) so as to get
divided into slices only for ease of analysis. The factor of the best possible results? Gauss found that the points in
safety is taken to be the same for each slice. This implies the interval should not be equally spaced but should be
that interslice normal and shear forces must act between symmetrically placed with respect to the mid-point of the
each slice. interval (Figure 7). The forces acting on a single Gauss
slice are identical with the forces considered with the
method of slices (Frat, 1999).
Gauss quadrature (GQ)
XL X XR
(91.5;76.2)
(85.2;75.3) 76.2
Fill (clay)
c = 47.9 kN/m2
= 19.6 kN/m3
(80;70.7)
(74;69.2)
(91.5;68.96)
Water table (67.7;67.1) 68.96
(60;66.4)
Silt
c = 23.9 kN/m2 (101.3;64)
= 17.3 kN/m3
(54.9;64.9)
(101.3;62.5) 63.0
(54.9;53.1)
Clay
c = 36.3 kN/m2 (91.5;60)
= 19.6 kN/m3 61.0
(91.5;57.3)
Sand
c=0 3
2
= 19.6 kN/m3
= 30o-40o 1
S = 80.0 m
x
S = 90.0 m
S = 95.0 m
analysis and the FOS was given to be 1.060. They stated face for the un-reinforced slope is relatively shallow. Piles
that the value is in reasonable agreement with appear to be very effective when they are installed in the
observations. region around the middle of the slope.
Reese et al. (1992) used drilled shafts which were
0.915 m in diameter and penetrated below the sliding sur-
Nomenclature
face. The tops of the drilled shafts were restrained with
anchors in stable soil. a ; Pile (cylinder) diameter, c; so-called cohesion for soil, D1;
The example slope, shown in Fig. 8, was reanalyzed centre to centre distance between two piles, D2; clear distance
using eight different methods namely as Fellenius (1936), between two piles, EI; pile stiffness, K; modulus of subgrade
Bishop simplified (1955), Janbu simplified and gene- reaction, M; number of grid points in the (r ) direction, N;
ralized (1954), Morgenstern and Price (1965), Spencer
(1967), Sarma (1973) and Fredlund and Krahn (1977) number of grid points in the direction, p ; lateral force on the
and available comparisons were made in Tables 1 and 2 pile, Re; Reynolds number, Ro; distance from a pile, S;
in terms of un-reinforced and reinforced FOS values. Also smoothing parameter, Trr , T , Tr ; extra stress tensors, TolZ;
SLOPE (1993) program used for un-reinforced case to tolerance value for iterations, Tol ; tolerance value for
compare the results. convergence of vorticity function, Tol ; tolerance value for
Three different pile locations were examined to find out convergence of stream function, V; flow velocity, v; velocity
the most suitable place(s) to obtain higher stabilized FOS component in the direction, z; depth from ground surface, ;
values.
unit weight of soil, &
rr , &
&
, r ; rates of strains in polar co-
ordinates, ; apparent viscosity, 0 ; Newtonian flow viscosity,
Conclusion
p ; Bingham plastic viscosity, ; angle of internal friction of
There are now bounded solutions for the lateral forces on soil, y ; yield stress, , r; polar co-ordinates, ; vorticity
the pile depending on the theory and circumstances
function, 0 ; effective distance in the vicinity of a pile, ;
used. This is to be welcomed, since an engineer has a
choice of examining a number of solutions. The scaling factor for r and ; stream function.
resistance that the piles can provide is assessed via an
analysis of the response of piles to lateral soil movement. REFERENCES
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