Strength reduction method in Barodesy

Strength reduction analysis are very common in geotechnical engineering to define a factor of safety of structures, e.g. slopes. Usually, the Mohr-Coulomb strength parameters friction angle φ′ and cohesion c′ are reduced until limit equilibrium is reached. This method is only applicable to material models which utilize a Mohr-Coulomb or similar (e.g. Drucker-Prager) failure criterion. In this article a strength reduction method for the barodetic material model is introduced and the results of slope stability calculations compared with the results with an elasto-plastic material model (Mohr-Coulomb) and with the results of an analytical analysis according to Bishop are presented. The strength reduction method for barodesy has been implemented in the Finite Element code Abaqus.