Effect of Pore-Water Pressure on 3D Stability of Rock Slope

The strength envelopes of almost all types of rocks are nonlinear over a wide range of normal stresses. This paper presents a study in which the nonlinear Hoek-Brown failure criterion was adopted and the kinematical approach of limit analysis was used to compute the three-dimensional (3D) stability of rock slope subjected to pore-water pressure. A generalized tangential technique was used to formulate a 3D stability problem as a classical optimization problem. The objective function, to be minimized with respect to the locations of the sliding body and tangency point, corresponded to dissipated energy. The pore-water pressure was incorporated into the objective function, and the effect of it on 3D stability is discussed. The numerical results for different types of rocks are presented for practical use. (C) 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.