analysis of effect of rainfall patterns on pore Water pressures in Unsaturated slopes.docVIP

analysis of effect of rainfall patterns on pore Water pressures in Unsaturated slopes C.C.W. Bolton*, Y.S. Tong*, T. Wang* and J.K. Kenny+ * The University of Mars, Mars + Western University, China brief inroduction, methodology and key results Many natural and man-made slopes are susceptible to failures. These failures are not only of economic significance but also could be life threatening. Rainfall-induced landslides are the most common natural disasters in Hong Kong. During rainstorms, infiltration of rainwater reduces matric suction, i.e. negative pore water pressure, within an unsaturated soil slope. This leads to a reduction in shear strength of soils. When the shear strength at the potential failure slip is exceeded, slope failure would occur. Therefore, an improved understanding of the variations of matric suction in the ground due to rainfall infiltration is essential for safer slope designs. Although two-dimensional (2D) transient seepage analyses in unsaturated soil slopes have been carried out by many researchers and engineers, the influence of rainfall patterns has seldom been reported. For more realistically simulating some three-dimensional (3D) aspects of groundwater flows in the field, a 3D parametric numerical analysis has been carried out using FEMWATER. A hill site at Lai Ping Road in Shatin, Hong Kong, was selected for numerical experiments to investigate the influence of rainfall patterns on pore water pressure distributions in an initially unsaturated ground condition. Based on some analyses of rainfall patterns in Hong Kong, three typical rainfall patterns, namely, advanced type A, central C, delayed type D, were identified. The modelled 24-h rainfall duration was divided into 12 intervals. Within each 2-h interval, the rainfall intensity was assumed to be constant. Figure 1 shows the computed actual infiltration rate varying with time during the 24-hr rainfall at the top (section XX() and at the toe (section YY() of an unsaturated cut slo