Reliability analysis of soil slope reinforced by micro-pile considering spatial variability of soil strength parameters

In the traditional slope stability analysis, ignoring the spatial variability of slope soil will lead to inaccurate analysis. In this paper, the K-L series expansion method is adopted to simulate random field of soil strength parameters. Based on Random Limit Equilibrium Method (RLEM), the influence of variation coefficient and fluctuation range on reliability of soil slope supported by micro-pile is investigated. The results show that the fluctuation ranges and the variation coefficients significantly influence the failure probability of soil slope supported by micro-pile. With the increase of fluctuation range of soil strength parameters, the mean safety factor of the slope increases slightly. The failure probability of the soil slope increases with the increase of fluctuation range when the mean safety factor of the slope is greater than 1. The failure probability of the slope increases by nearly 8.5% when the fluctuation range is increased from sv=2 m to sv =8 m. With the increase of the variation coefficient of soil strength parameters, the mean safety factor of the slope decreases slightly, and the probability of failure of soil slope increases accordingly. The failure probability of the slope increases by nearly 31% when the variation coefficient increases from COrc=0.2, COro=0.05 to COrc=0.5, COro=0.2.