Yield acceleration and permanent displacement of a slope reinforced with a row of drilled shafts

highlights•A method for estimating yield acceleration of a drilled shafts/slope system under a seismic excitation is presented.•Permanent displacement of a slope reinforced with drilled shafts under an earthquake excitation can be estimated using the Newmark's method.•A total of seven cases were presented to show the validity of the proposed simplified method.

In this paper, a method for estimating yield acceleration of a slope reinforced with a row of equally spaced drilled shafts under a seismic excitation is presented. The method is based on a concept of soil arching due to rigid inclusions of drilled shafts on slope, which in turn reduces the driving force on the down-slope side of drilled shafts. Considering soil arching effects and earthquake-induced inertia forces, a limiting equilibrium based formulation was derived. A computer program was coded to allow for calculations of yield acceleration of a drilled shafts reinforced slope with complex slope geometry and soil profiles. Once yield acceleration is determined, then Newmark's method can be evoked to estimate permanent displacement of a slope reinforced with a row of drilled shafts under an earthquake excitation. A total of seven cases were presented to show that the proposed Newmark type calculation is adequate when compared to 3-D finite element analysis results.