Efficient and consistent reliability analysis of soil slope stability using both limit equilibrium analysis and finite element analysis

• A probabilistic simulation-based approach is proposed for reliability analysis of slope stability based on both LEM and FEM.
• The computational efficiency is significantly improved at small probability levels.
• The proposed approach provides estimates of slope failure probability consistent with that from FEM-based direct MCS.
• The approach is illustrated using two slope examples considering spatial variability.

Limit equilibrium methods (LEMs) and finite element methods (FEMs) of slope stability analysis can be used in computer-based probabilistic simulation approaches (e.g., direct Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and Subset Simulation (SS)) to evaluate the slope failure probability (Pf). For a given slope problem, the computational effort for the LEM is generally much less than that required for the FEM, but the FEM tends to give a more realistic prediction of slope failure mechanism and its associated factor of safety. To make use of the advantages of both the LEM (e.g., computationally more efficient) and FEM (e.g., theoretically more realistic and rigorous in terms of slope failure mechanisms), a new probabilistic simulation method is developed in the paper. The proposed approach combines both a simple LEM (i.e., Ordinary Method of Slices considering a limited number of potential slip surfaces) and FEM with the response conditioning method to efficiently calculate Pf of slope stability and to give an estimate of Pf consistent with that obtained from directly performing MCS and SS based on the FEM. It is illustrated through two soil slope examples. Results show that the proposed approach calculates the Pf properly at small probability levels (e.g., Pf < 0.001). More importantly, it significantly reduces the number of finite element analyses needed in the calculation, and therefore improves the computational efficiency at small probability levels that are of great interest in slope design practice. In addition, the proposed approach opens up the possibility that makes use of the information obtained using a simple model (e.g., LEM) to guide the reliability analysis based on a relatively sophisticated model (e.g., FEM).