On the Critical Height of Undrained Saturated Clay Slopes

摘要

The well-known Taylor's Slope Chart and its theoretical foundation of Fellenius' solution for base failure have been reevaluated. It has been found that though the critical height is essentially correct, Fellenius' solution seems misleading, and the extent and location of the sliding surface is incorrect. A new derivation shows that there exists a simple relation between be central angle of the sliding surface and the slope angle and the complete solution involves only a quadratic equation. The paper concludes with some comments on Taylor's numerical solution and some recent investigations and comparisons with FLAC and Adina solutions. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes that due attention should be paid to the important problem of convergence by the iterative method.