Results of a study of the lateral stress distribution in slopes in soft clays is reported. Many slopes in soft clays in the southwestern part of sweden have a very low factor of safety against failure. Valuable information has been collected over the past years about those slopes, but, as yet, very little is known about the lateral stress distribution and the development of failures. The lateral stress distribution in a slope varies from top to toe of the slope. A better understanding of the behavior of slopes can be obtained with a better knowledge of those stresses and how they change with time and the factor of safety. When a slope is close to failure, the resulting deformations yield higher lateral stresses in the passive zone andlower in the active zone. To take this fully into account in slope modeling, full-scale field tests are imperative. In a research project at the chalmers university of technology, measurement of lateral stresses with glotzl cells in natural clay slopes was started at four sites and will continue over a period of at least 2 years. The results obtained will be compared with the results obtained by analytical and numerical methods to find out whether or not those methods can serve as a reliable means for the prediction of the lateral stressdistribution in the slope studied. Up to now, only janbu's generalized procedure has been utilized. For the slopes investigated, this method has been found to give lateral stresses quite close to those measured. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1278, Dynamic testing of aggregates and soils and lateral stress measurements 1990.
Abstract