Comprehensive Stability Evaluation of Rock Slope Using the Cloud Model-Based Approach

This article presents the cloud model-based approach for comprehensive stability evaluation of complicated rock slopes of hydroelectric stations in mountainous area. This approach is based on membership cloud models which can account for randomness and fuzziness in slope stability evaluation. The slope stability is affected by various factors and each of which is ranked into five grades. The ranking factors are sorted into four categories. The ranking system of slope stability is introduced and then the membership cloud models are applied to analyze each ranking factor for generating cloud memberships. Afterwards, the obtained cloud memberships are synthesized with the factor weights given by experts for comprehensive stability evaluation of rock slopes. The proposed approach is used for the stability evaluation of the left abutment slope in Jinping 1 Hydropower Station. It is shown that the cloud model-based strategy can well consider the effects of each ranking factor and therefore is feasible and reliable for comprehensive stability evaluation of rock slopes.