Evaluation of the Risk of Marine Slope Instability: A Pseudo-3D Approach for Application to Large Areas

This article presents a methodology developed to evaluate the instability of submarine slopes that extend over a large area. Special attention was paid to (1) the complex geometry (bathymetry) and the expanse of the slope, (2) the heterogeneity of the sediment, and (3) the distribution of the pore pressure. The safety factor was considered as a spatially varying quantity. The General Formulation (GLE, Fredlund and Krahn 1977), which fully satisfies equilibrium conditions, was used for evaluating the stability of the marine slope. The submarine slope failure, which occurred on 16 October 1979 during the construction of the new Nice airport, was studied in order to test the developed model. Geotechnical parameters were taken from experimental tests carried out by IFREMER on 19 cores extracted at different depths (from 27 m to 1300 m) (Cochonat, Bourillet, and Savoye, 1993; Mulder et al., 1994). Many scenarios were proposed in order to explain the cause of the Nice slope failure (Habib, 1994). In this article, two of those scenarios were tested. Simulation results are presented and discussed.     

Numerical modeling of long waves in shallow water using Incremental Differential Quadrature Method

Incremental Differential Quadrature Method (IDQM) as a rapid and accurate method for numerical simulation of Nonlinear Shallow Water (NLSW) waves is employed. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first endeavor to exploit DQM in coastal hydraulics. The one-dimensional NLSW equations and related boundary conditions are discretized in space and temporal directions by DQM rules and the resulting system of equations are used to compute the state variables in the entire computational domain. It was found that the splitting of total simulation time into a number of smaller time increments, could significantly enhance the performance of the proposed method. Furthermore, results of this study show two main advantages for IDQM compared with other conventional methods, namely; unconditional stability and minimal computational effort. Indeed, using IDQM, one can use a few grid points (in spatial or time direction) without imposing any stability condition on the time step to obtain an accurate convergent solution.     

Complexation of mercury by dissolved organic matter in surface waters of Galveston Bay, Texas

The chemical speciation of dissolved mercury in surface waters of Galveston Bay was determined using the concentrations of mercury-complexing ligands and conditional stability constants of mercury-ligand complexes. Two classes of natural ligands associated with dissolved organic matter were determined by a competitive ligand exchange-solvent solvent extraction (CLE-SSE) method: a strong class (L_s), ranging from 19 to 93 pM with an average conditional stability constant (K_HgLs) of 10²⁸, and a weak class (L_w) ranging from 1.4 to 9.8 nM with an average K_HgLs of 10²³. The range of conditional stability constants between mercury and natural ligands suggested that sulfides and thiolates are important binding sites for dissolved mercury in estuarine waters. A positive correlation between the estuarine distribution of dissolved glutathione and that of mercury-complexing ligands supported this suggestion. Thermodynamic equilibrium modeling using stability constants for HgL, HgCl_x, Hg(OH)_x, and HgCl(OH) and concentrations of each ligand demonstrated that almost all of the dissolved mercury (> 99%) in Galveston Bay was complexed by natural ligands associated with dissolved organic matter. The importance of low concentrations of high-affinity ligands that may originate in the biological system (i.e., glutathione and phytochelatin) suggests that the greater portion of bulk dissolved organic matter may not be important for mercury complexation in estuarine surface waters.     

冻土区输电线路塔基选位的影响因素分析

青海西藏500kV直流联网输电线路工程跨越整个青藏高原,其生存环境不可避免与冻土有着紧密联系,冻土特有的冻胀、融沉特性给线路的勘测、设计、施工及后期运营带来了极大挑战。本文对取自青藏高原的原状和重塑冻土样样品进行了物理力学试验。结果表明:同种土在不同含冰量下,随含冰量的增大,则冻融特性敏感性增强;不同性质的土,在含冰量相同的情况下,颗粒越细,则冻融特性越敏感。同时,分析认为:塔基地质环境、不良冻土现象、不同地貌单元、冻土的热稳定性特征及施工作业便捷性等都是影响塔基稳定性的重要因素。     

基于随机二元指标的边坡稳定性分析

考虑岩土体抗剪强度参数的变异性,综合极限平衡法和可靠性理论构建了安全系数概率密度分布函数模型。结合实际工程特点,以安全系数大于临界值为标准构建有效区,将有效区安全系数均值与对应可靠度相乘,得到以安全系数和可靠度为随机二元指标的有效安全系数。以有效安全系数为定量指标,将边坡宏观特征现象与定量分析相联系,构建意义更为明确的边坡稳定性分析及评价方法。通过工程实例对比了有效安全系数与传统评价指标之间的差异。所得结论可为工程建设提供参考和借鉴。     

芜湖市中山北路地下通道基坑支护及稳定性计算

根据芜湖市中山北路地下通道基坑勘察报告, 提出排桩支护和内支撑为本基坑的围护结构方案, 同时考虑基坑外侧杂填土层较厚, 在基坑支护结构外侧设置压密注浆止水帷幕。最后采用瑞典条分法、普朗德尔理论和太沙基等理论分别对基坑的整体以及抗倾覆稳定性进行分析, 并且对基坑抗隆起进行了验算。计算与分析结果证明了以上稳定性及隆起验算均符合安全性要求, 基坑的支护方案是可行的, 支护方法与验算方法为同类工程设计与验算提供参考。     

A multi-method approach to study the stability of natural slopes and landslide susceptibility mapping

In this paper, a multi-method approach for the assessment of the stability of natural slopes and landslide hazard mapping applied to the Dakar coastal region is presented. This approach is based on the effective combination of geotechnical field and laboratory works, of GIS, and of mechanical (deterministic and numerical) stability analysis. By using this approach, valuable results were gained regarding instability factors, landslide kinematics, simulation of slope failure and coastal erosion. This led to a thorough assessment and strong reduction in the subjectivity of the slope stability and hazard assessment and to the development of an objective landslide danger map of the SW coast of Dakar. Analysis of the results shows that the slides were influenced by the geotechnical properties of the soil, the weathering, the hydrogeological situation, and the erosion by waves. The landslide susceptibility assessment based on this methodological approach has allowed for an appropriate and adequate consideration of the multiple factors affecting the stability and the optimization of planning and investment for land development in the city.     

Time fluctuations of small ion number density in the atmospheric surface layer

The standard deviations and time-spectra of small ion number density have been measured at ground level under different atmospheric stability conditions. The auto-correlation correlograms and the time-spectra imply a scale of fluctuations corresponding to 1 to 4 min. No clear relationships between standard deviations of small ion number density and micro-meteorological parameters are observed. Thus the results are not a support for Monin-Obukhov similarity theory. For the highest frequencies the slopes of the spectra seem to follow the –5/3-law fairly well and the frequencies of the peak values of individual spectra lnfS(f) increase when the atmosphere stability increases, which is valid for ordinary micrometeorological parameters.     

某边坡变形破坏机理的数值分析

某花岗岩矿岩土体主要有填土、粉质粘土、淤泥及淤泥质土、含泥中粗砂、粘土、残积砂质粘土,其下为花岗岩基岩。边坡最大高度75m,其中残积土层以上的土质边坡高度约50m。本文运用有限元强度折减法对该边坡的稳定性进行了研究,得出了潜在的破坏模式及各个滑动部分的安全系数。分析结果表明,本边坡存在3个潜在滑动面,其中两个为浅层滑动面,另一个为深层滑动面。两个浅层滑动面的稳定系数在1.13～1.17,处于临界状态。深层滑动面稳定性系数在1.29,目前尚处在相对稳定状态。根据分析结果,提出了如下加固措施:（1）对滑坡体进行削坡处理;（2）在其滑动面下方设置抗滑台阶;（3）采用预应力锚索框架梁结合肋柱进行加固处理。     

Influence of earthquakes on the stability of slopes

Earthquakes are a major trigger for instability of natural and man-made slopes. Often the instability of slopes due to an earthquake causes more destruction and kills more people than the actual earthquake itself. A comparison is made between different methodologies to analyze the potential stability of slopes during earthquakes. Theoretically, it seems simple to calculate the stability of a slope during an earthquake. In reality, however, the stability is influenced by so many parameters that are either not known or which influence is so poorly known that a decent estimation of stability cannot be made. Offshore the situation is worse because proper data required for stability calculations are even less available than onshore. On- and offshore, erosion and weathering create continuously slopes that may become unstable during a future earthquake, offshore also sedimentation creates continuously new slopes. Another fundamental problem in stability analysis is the complicated and largely unknown behavior of seismic waves in three-dimensions in natural materials. The lack of accurate data and the unknown behavior of seismic waves in three-dimensions make estimations of slope stability during an earthquake unreliable.