On the variability of the effective friction angle of Saint Lucian soils: investigations through a laboratory database

Shepheard, Casey J.; Vardanega, Paul J.; Holcombe, Elizabeth; Hen-Jones, Rose; Luca, Flavia De

doi:10.1002/cepa.765

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…(i) Based on preliminary work by Shepheard et al (2018b) and Vardanega et al (2018), to investigate whether significant soil property correlations can be derived to link soil friction angle to basic soil parameters for the Saint Lucia database (hereafter referred to as the 'SL database');…”

Section: Study Aimsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In soil engineering and geotechnics it is common to estimate engineering parameters that are complex or hard to measure by using a simpler property, or combination of properties (e.g., Kulhaway and Mayne, 1990;Phoon, 2014a, 2014b;Havaee et al 2015;Zolfaghari, et al 2016;Ahmed (2018) Schjønning and Lamandé, 2018). Preliminary statistical analysis of this database has been reported in Shepheard et al (2018b) and Vardanega et al (2018). Figure 2 shows the soil friction angles (and apparent cohesion intercepts) in the database plotted against the liquid limit (w L ), plastic limit (w p ), PI, silt-clay fraction (SF) and natural water content (w nat ).…”

Section: Geotechnical Correlationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Minding the geotechnical data gap: appraisal of the variability of key soil parameters for slope stability modelling in Saint Lucia

Shepheard

Vardanega

Holcombe

et al. 2019

Bull Eng Geol Environ

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Identification of failure thresholds and critical uncertainties associated with slope stability often requires the specification of geotechnical parameter values for input into a physically-based model. The variation of these parameters (including mechanical soil properties such as effective friction angle and cohesion) can have a significant impact on the computed factor of safety. These uncertainties arise from natural variations in soils, measurement techniques, and lack of reliable information. Researchers may use statistical analysis coupled with numerical simulation to determine possible ranges of slope factors of safety and the relative influence of geotechnical and other parameters, such as topsoil depth and rainfall. This study investigates the variation of geotechnical parameters observed on the island of Saint Lucia in the Eastern Caribbean. A database of particle size distributions, in-situ moisture contents, Atterberg and direct shear box test results is compiled from 91 samples of tropical soils in Saint Lucia. A study of various probability distributions shows that the Weibull distribution may be favoured for the effective friction angle of the Saint Lucian soils considered based on the Akaike information criterion, employed as an estimator of the relative quality of statistical models dealing with the trade-off between goodness-of-fit and simplicity of the model.

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Section: Study Aimsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Geotechnical Correlationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minding the geotechnical data gap: appraisal of the variability of key soil parameters for slope stability modelling in Saint Lucia

Shepheard

Vardanega

Holcombe

et al. 2019

Bull Eng Geol Environ

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show abstract

“…1 shows a plot of effective peak friction angle plotted against liquidity index. The systematic lack of data is likely contributing to the inherent scatter in the dataset, although multiple-linear regression analysis has helped refine this somewhat (see Shepheard et al 2018b for more details on the Saint Lucian database analysis). Shepheard et al 2018b), where W is the water content, PL is the plastic limit and LL is the liquid limit.…”

Section: Slope Stability In the Humid Tropicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors wish to thank the Government of Saint Lucia Ministry of Infrastructure, Port Services and Transport for supplying us with the Saint Lucia soils data for use in this work (see also Shepheard et al 2018b for further information). kPa.…”

Section: Data Availability Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geodatabases to improve geotechnical design and modelling

et al. 2018

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Geotechnical designers and modellers must capture and quantify the variability of key soil properties to make engineering decisions. There is a long history in geotechnical engineering of assembling large databases of past soil tests. This paper shows the use of geotechnical databases in two contexts: (a) slope stability modelling in the Eastern Caribbean and (b) settlement response of bored piles in London Clay.

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“…Kulhawy & Mayne 1990, Phoon & Kulhawy 1999a, Phoon & Kulhawy 1999b, Phoon 2017. Recent efforts to develop a geotechnical database for Saint Lucia have been reported by Vardanega et al (2018) and Shepheard et al (2018bShepheard et al ( , 2019. In Shepheard et al (2019), the first 91 entries in the database were reported and analysed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Databases to Assist Slope Stability Assessments in the Eastern Caribbean

Vardanega

Holcombe

Savva

et al. 2020

Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk

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Rainfall-triggered landslides are an 'everyday risk' to Small Island States, such as Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, and have the potential to destroy or damage buildings and disrupt lifelines such as roads and pipelines. To better evaluate these landslide hazards, efforts have been made to develop decisionsupport tools linking rainfall scenarios to stability for different types of road cut slope. Many thousands of stochastic simulations can be performed using a combined hydrology and slope stability model (CHASM) which requires inputs of slope cross-sectional geometry, soil and hydrological parameters which allows representative rainfall-triggered landslide scenarios to be produced. To use CHASM for this purpose the statistical variation of the relevant geotechnical properties such as friction angle needs to be assessed. This paper presents the analysis of an updated database for Saint Lucian soils that has been compiled using data supplied by the Government of Saint Lucia Ministry of Infrastructure, Port Services and Transport. The Coefficient of Variation values of the key soil mechanics parameters are reported and previously developed transformation models for estimating effective friction angle are updated. The Weibull statistical distribution is shown to be the best fit to the friction angle data.

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On the variability of the effective friction angle of Saint Lucian soils: investigations through a laboratory database

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

Minding the geotechnical data gap: appraisal of the variability of key soil parameters for slope stability modelling in Saint Lucia

Minding the geotechnical data gap: appraisal of the variability of key soil parameters for slope stability modelling in Saint Lucia

Geodatabases to improve geotechnical design and modelling

Soil Databases to Assist Slope Stability Assessments in the Eastern Caribbean

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