Abstract: | The seismic design method for earth structures considers only the safety factor, subsidence and sliding displacement. However, the estimation of the size of slope failures is necessary to judge the remaining function of an embankment after an earthquake event. The size of slope failures due to an earthquake is investigated by considering the heterogeneity of the ground strength and was based on slope stability analysis of two case histories: the 2001 Geiyo Earthquake (Mj6.7) and 2009 Suruga Bay Earthquake (Mj6.5). As a result, we propose a method for slope failure size estimation based on the maximum slip surface. The proposed method enables a rational assessment of the functional loss of an embankment in terms of the slope failure size. |