Characterizing model uncertainty of upper-bound limit analysis on slopes using 3D rotational failure mechanism

The slope stability assessment is a classical problem in geotechnical engineering. This topic have attracted many researcher’s attention and various theoretical models for predicting critical slope heights or safety factors in the light of the limit equilibrium (LE) method and the kinematical approach of limit analysis (LA) method. Meanwhile, a large number of experimental studies have been conducted to check the slope stability. Using centrifuge testing results, this paper aims to employ Bayesian method to characterize the model uncertainties of the classical three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism proposed by Michalowski and Drescher (2009) to predict critical slope heights in frictional soils, by incorporating the test uncertainties and parameter uncertainties. The obtained results show that the LA three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism overestimates the critical slope height compared with the LE method, and the experimental observational uncertainty has negligible influences on the posterior statistics of model uncertainty.