A Case Study of Rainfall-Induced Slope Failures on the Effect of Unsaturated Soil Characteristics

Rainfall-induced slope failures were simulated by seepage and stability analyses for actual slopes of weathered soils. After undisturbed sampling and testing on a specimen of unsaturated conditions, a seepage analysis was performed under actual rainfall and it was found that the pore water pressure increased at the boundary of soil and rock layers. The safety factor of slope stability decreased below 1.0 and the failure of actual slope could be simulated. Under design rainfall intensity, the seepage analysis could not include the effects of the antecedent rainfall and the rainfall duration. Due to these limitations, the safety factor of slope stability resulted in above 1.0, since the hydraulic head of soil layers had not be affected significantly. In the analysis of another slope failure, the parameters of unsaturated conditions were evaluated using artificial neural network (ANN). In the analysis of seepage, the boundary of soil and rock was saturated sufficiently and then the safety factor could be calculated below 1.0. It was found that the failure of actual slope can be simulated by ANN-based estimation.