Slope stability analysis via Discrete Element Method and Monte Carlo Simulations

Abstract

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). It is difficult to consider the heterogeneity and discontinuity of rock and soil in conventional slope stability analysis. This paper proposes an efficient slope stability analysis method based on discrete element method (DEM) and Monte Carlo simulations(MCS). The analysis employed the stacking models with multiple slopes and the element displacement to achieve rapid analysis of slope stability. Using on the high-performance discrete element software MatDEM, a stacking model containing 100 2D slopes and a total of more than 800,000 elements was generated. The element tensile strength F and friction coefficient μ p were set as random variables to consider the material heterogeneity and uncertainty. We performed the stability analyses of 40,000 slopes for 28 hours. The numerical results show that the slopes were instable when a sudden displacement and penetrating sliding surface occurred. The coefficient of variation COVPf of slope failure probability is greatly meets the target accuracy requirements of MCS, which shows the method can be applied to the refined analysis of slopes with high-precision requirements and multiple random variables.