Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25

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Computers and Geotechnics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo

System probabilistic stability analysis of soil slopes using Gaussian

process regression with Latin hypercube sampling
Fei Kang a,b,⇑, Shaoxuan Han a, Rodrigo Salgado b, Junjie Li a
a
School of Hydraulic Engineering, Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
b
School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1284, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a system probabilistic stability evaluation method for slopes based on Gaussian pro-
Received 7 February 2014 cess regression (GPR) and Latin hypercube sampling. The analysis is composed of three parts. Firstly, Latin
Received in revised form 7 July 2014 hypercube sampling is adopted to generate samples for constructing the response surface. Then, based on
Accepted 17 August 2014
the samples, Gaussian process regression, which is a popular machine learning technique for nonlinear
Available online 6 September 2014
system modeling, is used for establishing the response surface to approximate the limit state function.
Finally, Monte Carlo simulation is performed via the GPR response surface to estimate the system failure
Keywords:
probability of slopes. Five case examples were examined to verify the effectiveness of the proposed meth-
Slope stability
Response surface
odology. Computer simulation results show that the proposed system reliability analysis method can
System reliability analysis accurately give the system failure probability with a relatively small number of deterministic slope sta-
Monte Carlo simulation bility analyses.
Gaussian processes Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Computer experiments

1. Introduction [6] were also adopted for simultaneous determination of probabi-

The factors of safety used in conventional slope stability evalu-
ation are not able to consider the degree of uncertainty associated
with soil properties. Probabilistic methods provide effective ways
to reflect the uncertainties in slope stability evaluation [1]. Reli-
ability obtained by probabilistic slope stability analysis is sug-
gested as a complementary measure to the factor of safety to
help engineers make acceptable designs [2]. In recent years,
numerous studies have been carried out to develop methods for
probabilistic slope stability analysis.
The commonly adopted probabilistic slope stability analysis
methods include first-order and second-order reliability methods
and the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. A common
approach to determine the reliability of a slope is calculating the
reliability corresponding to the slip surface with the minimum fac-
tor of safety. However, the slip surface with the minimum factor of
safety may not be the surface of the maximum probability of
failure [3]. As an alternative, Hassan and Wolff [4] proposed
algorithms for searching the probabilistic critical surface with
the minimum reliability index. Intelligent global optimization
algorithms, like genetic algorithm [5] and differential evolution
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: School of Hydraulic Engineering, Faculty of
Infrastructure Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
Tel.: +86 0411 84708516; fax: +86 0411 84708501.
E-mail addresses: kangfei2009@163.com, kangfei@dlut.edu.cn (F. Kang).
listic critical slip surface and reliability index. Besides directly cal-
culating the factor of safety by limit equilibrium methods and
numerical approaches based on continuum mechanics, response
surface method (RSM) is also adopted to make first-order sec-
ond-moment methods more convenient and efficient [7–9].
The merit of these methods is they can obtain the probabilistic
critical slip surface, design point and the related failure probability
of the surface. However, they did not consider slope stability as a
system reliability problem. The obtained failure probability associ-
ated with the critical slip surface will be smaller than that for the
system that comprises all potential slip surfaces, especially when
the safety factors for different slip surfaces are not highly corre-
lated [10]. Therefore, the slope reliability problem had better be
solved in the framework of system reliability. Some researchers
have dedicated to developing system reliability analysis methods
for probabilistic slope stability evaluation. Oka and Wu [10], Chow-
dhury and Xu [11], Low et al. [12], Zhang et al. [13] and Ji and Low
[14] developed system reliability analysis method based on reli-
ability-bounds theories, which can predict the upper and lower
bound values of the system failure probability. Some approaches
are also proposed to get a more accurate system failure probability.
Griffiths et al. [15] and Huang et al. [16] calculated the system fail-
ure probability by Monte Carlo simulation and finite element mod-
els. Ching et al. [17] proposed a method based on importance
sampling technique, which is unbiased as MCS, but much more
efficient than MCS. Wang et al. [18] developed a subset simulation

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2014.08.010
0266-352X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
14 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25
method to consider spatial variability of soil properties. Zhang
et al. [19] applied MCS to the identified representative slip surfaces
from a large number of potential slip surfaces to obtain the system
failure probability. Li et al. [20] also developed a system reliability
approach to evaluate the slope failure probability using represen-
tative slip surfaces together with MCS. Cho [21] calculated the fail-
ure probability of the slope based on multi-point first-order
reliability method, which gave the probability of the union of
approximate events. The approaches mentioned above [19–21]
need identify the representative slip surfaces or failure modes from
a large number of potential slip surfaces. A straightforward way to
get the system reliability is Monte Carlo simulation [22]. The disad-
vantage is that the computational effort can be extremely intensive.
Therefore, importance sampling [17], subset simulation [23], and
response surface methods [24] are adopted to improve the efficiency
of MCS. Response surface methods can predict the factor of safety
instead of the limit equilibrium method or strength reduction tech-
nique. However, except the work of Zhang et al. [24], other works did
not verify the effectiveness of MCS combined with response surface
methods on system probabilistic slope stability evaluation. It has
previously been verified that a traditional polynomial response sur-
face is unable to approximate the limit states accurately for system
reliability analysis problems of soil slopes [24].
Gaussian processes (GPs) are Bayesian state-of-the-art tools for
discriminative machine learning, i.e., regression, classification and
dimensionality reduction [25]. Compared to artificial neural net-
works (ANN) and support vector machines (SVM), GPs possess sev-
eral attractions. For instance, training GPs is far simpler than ANN,
and unlike in SVM, one can adopt very flexible kernels, including
several free parameters, since their optimization can be efficiently
done through maximum likelihood estimation [26]. The use of
Gaussian processes for modeling geotechnical engineering prob-
lems is a relatively recent development [27,28]. In this paper, a
response surface method based on Gaussian process regression
(GPR) [29] with Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) [30] is presented
for system reliability analysis. GPR is adopted to establish a
response surface that represents the relationship between soil
properties and the factor of safety. Training and test data for the
model are obtained by LHS and uniform design. Response surface
established by GPR and LHS is integrated with MCS to system fail-
ure probability calculation of soil slopes. Five case examples are
examined to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
Results are also compared with several other recently proposed
methods for system reliability analysis of slopes.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, sys-
tem reliability analysis of slopes is stated. In Section 3, Gaussian
process regression is introduced. In Section 4, GPR-based MCS for
system reliability analysis is described. In Section 5, simulation
results are presented. Discussions are given in Section 6, and in
Section 7, conclusions are provided.
2. System reliability analysis of slopes
2.1. Probabilistic slop stability analysis
As a complementary approach to deterministic slope stability
analysis that can obtain a factor of safety, probabilistic slope stabil-
ity analysis can reflect the effect of uncertain variables. These
uncertain variables can be represented as a vector x = [x1,
x2, . . ., xD]. The variables in the vector are corresponding to uncer-
tain soil parameters of a slope, and D is the number of uncertain
variables been considered in the calculation. The failure probability
Pf of the slope can be presented as the following integral
Z where Ns is the total number of trials or simulations and Nf is the
Pf ¼ PfgðxÞ 6 0g ¼ f x ðxÞ dx ð1Þ
gðxÞ60
where g(x) is a limit state function formulated by the uncertain
variables to describe the limit state in the space of x, fx(x) is the joint
probability density function (PDF).
The operating state of the slope can be reflected by the limit
state function. If g(x) > 0, the slope will be safe, else if g(x) < 0 the
slope will be a failure, and g(x) = 0 is the boundary between stable
and unstable. The limit state function for probabilistic slope stabil-
ity analysis is usually defined as
Z ¼ gðxÞ ¼ F s ðxÞ  1:0 ð2Þ
where Fs is the factor of safety obtained by a deterministic slope sta-
bility analysis method [31].
From Eq. (1), we can see that the integral is carried out over the
failure domain. However, direct evaluation of the D-fold integral is
virtually impossible [32]. Therefore, approximate techniques, such
as first-order reliability methods (FORM), second-order reliability
methods (SORM) and MCS have been developed to evaluate the
probability of failure.
2.2. Reliability index for slope stability evaluation
The reliability index b is developed to evaluate the comparative
reliability of a system when the exact probability distribution func-
tion is not known. It is defined as [33]
lZ E½gðxÞ
b¼ ¼ ð3Þ
rZ r½gðxÞ
where lZ = E[g(x)] and rZ = r[g(x)] are the mean value and standard
deviation of the performance function. It measures how far the
mean of the safety margin g(x) is from zero (assumed to be the fail-
ure point) in units of number of standard deviations. In Eq. (3) the
limit state function is assumed normally distributed.
The relationship between failure probability and reliability
index can be expressed as
Pf ¼ UðbÞ ¼ 1  UðbÞ ð4Þ
where U is the standard normal cumulative distribution function.
Eq. (4) shows that there is a unique relationship between the reli-
ability index (b) and the probability of failure (Pf).
2.3. System reliability analysis and Monte Carlo simulation
In slope reliability analysis, there may present numerous slip
surfaces or failure modes. The system reliability is that of all poten-
tial slip surfaces, and the failure probability of a system will be lar-
ger than that for any single slip surface [10]. Generally, the FORM
approach can only obtain the failure probability associate with the
probabilistic critical surface, which has the minimum reliability
index among numerous slip surfaces. System failure probability
calculation is now recognized as a very important problem in slope
reliability analysis [19].
The system reliability of a slope can be obtained by Monte Carlo
simulation. MCS is known as a simple random sampling method or
statistical trial method that makes realizations based on randomly
generated sampling sets for uncertain variables [34]. There are three
primary steps to perform MCS: (1) select a distribution type for the
random variable; (2) generate a sampling set from the distribution;
(3) conduct simulations using the generated sampling set.
When MCS is adopted, the probability of failure is given approx-
imately by
Nf
Pf ¼ ð5Þ
Ns
total number of cases where the failure has occurred. The coefficient
of variation of the estimator is [19,35]
 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25 15

sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1  Pf The element Kij is the covariance between values of the latent
COVPf ¼ ð6Þ functions f(xi) and f(xj), and it encodes about the prior of our
Ns Pf
knowledge of nonlinear process among latent functions.
Although MCS has many merits, this approach has not received GPR is used to compute the predictive distribution of the func-
an overwhelming acceptance due to the excessive computational tion values f* at test points X ¼ ½x1 ; x2 ; . . . ; xm . A graphical model
effort that is required. It is noted that most civil engineering works representation of a GP is given in Fig. 1. In the figure, fi denotes f(xi).
have target failure probabilities between 103 and 105 [33]. A The set of latent function values fi indexed by the set of indices xi is
large number of realizations are required to estimate failure prob- fully connected. Each of the connections represents the correlation
abilities accurately in this range. The computation time can be pro- between two latent variables, which are defined by a covariance
hibitively high, especially when the structure exhibits nonlinear function [37].
behavior or the numerical model is rather complex. For example, The distribution of y conditioned on the values of f is given by
when g(x) involves a nonlinear finite-element analysis, large num- an isotropic Gaussian
bers of realizations may not be practical. The efficiency of MCS can
pðyjf ; XÞ ¼ Nðf ; r2n IÞ ð12Þ
be improved by importance sampling [17], subset simulation [23]
and response surface methods [24]. where I is the identity matrix.
From the property of the Gaussian distribution, we can get the
3. Gaussian process regression marginal distribution of y as
Z
Consider a data set S of n observations S = {(xi, yi)|i = 1, . . ., n}, pðyjXÞ ¼ pðyjf ; XÞpðf jXÞ df ¼ Nð0; K þ r2n IÞ ð13Þ
where xi is a D-dimensional input vector, and yi is a scalar output
or target. This set of input/output pairs will be referred to as sam- The joint distribution of the observed target values and the
ple points or experimental points. For the sake of convenience, the function values at the test locations under the prior can be written
inputs are aggregated into a matrix X = [x1, x2, . . ., xn]. The outputs as
are likewise aggregated, y = [y1, y2, . . ., yn]. The regression task is,   " #!
given a new input x⁄, to obtain the predictive distribution for the y KðX; XÞ þ r2 I KðX; X Þ
 N 0; ð14Þ
corresponding observation y⁄ based on S. f KðX ; XÞ KðX ; X Þ
A Gaussian process is a collection of random variables, any finite
number of which have a joint Gaussian distribution [29]. A Gauss- From (9), using the standard rules for conditioning Gaussians,
ian process is the generalization of a Gaussian distribution. While we can get the predictive distribution
the latter is the distribution of a random variable, the Gaussian pðf  jX; y; X Þ  Nðf  ; covðf  ÞÞ ð15Þ
process describes a distribution over functions. From function
space view, the Gaussian process f(x) can be determined by the f  ¼ KðX ; XÞ½KðX; XÞ þ r2 I1 y
corresponding mean m(x) and covariance functions that are ð16Þ
defined as follows:
1
covðf  Þ ¼ KðX ; X Þ  KðX ; XÞ½KðX; XÞ þ r2 I KðX; X Þ ð17Þ
mðxÞ ¼ Eðf ðxÞÞ ð7Þ
The output estimates are made not only with an expected pre-
kðx; x0 Þ ¼ Eððf ðxÞ  mðxÞÞðf ðx0 Þ  mðx0 ÞÞÞ ð8Þ diction (mean) of latent function f⁄, but also with a measure of
uncertainty (variance).
where k(x, x0 ) is the covariance (or kernel) function evaluated at x
and x0 .
A Gaussian process f(x) can be represented as 3.2. Covariance functions

f ðxÞ  GPðmðxÞ; kðx; x0 ÞÞ ð9Þ Selection of an appropriate covariance function for a particular
Usually, for notational simplicity we will take the mean func- problem is an important part of GPs, because the choice of covari-
tion to be zero and the offsets and simple trends can be subtracted ance functions determines the properties of sample functions
out before modeling [36]. drawn from the GP prior (e.g., smoothness, length scales, ampli-
tude, etc.). It is a basic similarity assumption that points with
3.1. GPs for regression inputs which are close are likely to have similar target values,
and thus training points that are near to a test point should be
In GPs, we assume that the relation between the input vector informative about the prediction at that point. Under the Gaussian
and the target is given by
yi ¼ f ðxi Þ þ e ð10Þ y1 x1*

where f(x) represents an arbitrary regression function while e is the f1 f1*

x1 y1*
noise follows an independent, identically distributed Gaussian dis-
tribution with zero mean and variance r2, that is e  N(0, r2).
y2
Furthermore, we assume that f = [f(x1), f(x2), . . ., f(xn)]T behaves f2
according to a Gaussian process, that is p(f|X) = N(0, K), where K
x2
is the covariance matrix with element Kij = k(xi, xj).
f3 fm*
xm*
y3
0 1
kðx1 ; x1 Þ kðx1 ; x2 Þ    kðx1 ; xn Þ fn
x3 ym*
B kðx ; x Þ kðx ; x Þ    kðx ; x Þ C
B 2 1 2 2 2 n C xn
KðX; XÞ ¼ B
B .. .. .. ..
C
C ð11Þ yn
@ . . . . A
Fig. 1. Graphical model for GPR [37]. Squares represent observed variables and
kðxn ; x1 Þ kðxn ; x2 Þ    kðxn ; xn Þ
circles represent unknowns.
16 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25
process view, it is the covariance function that defines nearness or
similarity. We are free in our choice of covariance function, so long
as the covariance matrices produced are always symmetric and
positive semidefinite. We adopt the most commonly-used squared
exponential covariance function with automatic relevance deter-
mination distance measure [29],
 
1
kðxp ; xq Þ ¼ r2f exp  ðxp  xq ÞT Mðxp  xq Þ
2
! 4.2.1. Latin hypercube sampling
2 1X D
ðxp;i  xq;i Þ2
¼ rf exp  2
2 i¼1 li
where M = diag(l)2, l = [l1, l2, . . ., lD]T. h = (ln l1, . . ., ln lD, ln rf) are the
hyperparameters.
3.3. Training a Gaussian process model
The parameters of the kernel functions are called the hyperpa-
rameters of the Gaussian process. These hyperparameters can be
learned by maximizing the log-likelihood of the training outputs
given the inputs. Considering y  Nð0; K þ r2n IÞ, the log-marginal
likelihood of the hyperparameters is expressed as
1 1 1   n
log pðyjX; hÞ ¼  yT ðK þ r2n IÞ y  log K þ r2n I  log 2p
2 2 2
The maximization can be achieved by using efficient gradient-
based optimization algorithms such as conjugate gradients
method.
4. GPR-based MCS for system probabilistic evaluation of slopes
4.1. Traditional response surface methods
Response surface method (RSM) was proposed as a collection of
statistical and mathematical techniques to reduce the computa-
tional effort of FORM, SORM or MCS. The basic idea of classical
RSM for reliability analysis is to approximate an implicit limit state
function by an equivalent polynomial function [38]. This method
approximates an implicit limit state function as a response surface
function in an explicit form, which is evaluated for the selected
experimental points throughout a number of deterministic struc-
tural analyses. A response surface can be approximated by a sec-
ond-order polynomial without cross terms as follows:
X
D X
D As for the sampling size, there still have no precise guidelines
gðxÞ ¼ a0 þ bi xi þ ci x2i
i¼1 i¼1
where xi (i = 1, . . ., D) are the basic variables and a0, bi, ci are the
2D + 1 unknown coefficients to be determined. The unknown coef-
ficients can be obtained based on discrete evaluations from the true
limit state function. The number of sample points must be larger or
at least equal to the number of coefficients. The calibrated second-
order polynomial can then be used as the performance function in
the subsequent reliability analysis instead of the actual limit state
function.
4.2. Latin hypercube sampling and uniform designs
Computer simulation experiments are needed to establish the
Gaussian process response surface model. Random sampling may
be the most intuitive method for generating training and test sam-
ples [39]. Generally speaking, to achieve a valid response surface
model, the data selected for training must be ‘‘representative’’ of
the overall design space. In this paper, the LHS is adopted to gen-
erate samples for training the GPR model and uniform design
[40] is adopted to generate testing samples to test the generaliza-
tion performance of the established GPR model. Compared to a
random sampling method, the two methods can select training
data cover the entire design space uniformly, especially when the
number of variables is large and the number of training datasets
is relatively small. Meanwhile, they can avoid repeating runs and
make good use of the resources.
Latin hypercube sampling is a popular choice for performing
ð18Þ
computer experiments. Suppose that V is a hypercube with dimen-
sion D, the algorithm generates N samples in this hypercube V.
In the simplest version of this design, the continuous range of
each variable is partitioned into N equally spaced intervals, each
interval for each variable is sampled exactly once, and the univar-
iate sample values are randomly matched across all the variables
to form the N sample points by randomly permuting each factor
column in the design [30,41]. The samples generated by this sam-
pling method are distributed uniformly in the hypercube space.
Alternative approaches have also been suggested for mating
factor levels in LHS. Following the advice to avoid replicate design
points, one popular option is the class of maximin LHS [41], in
which Latin hypercube samples are iteratively generated to find
the best one according to the criterion that maximize minimum
ð19Þ distance between points.
4.2.2. Uniform design
Uniform design (UD), proposed by Fang et al. [40], was initially
developed for seeking experimental points to be uniformly scat-
tered in a domain. For convenient use of UD, some design tables
are available on the website, http://sites.stat.psu.edu/~rli/DMCE/
UniformDesign/main.html. A table for uniform design is denoted
by Up(qt), where U represents uniform design, p is the number of
experiments, q is the number of levels of each variable and t is
the number of random variables. The details about how to use
these tables to generate samples can be seen in the works of Lü
et al. [42].
Sampling examples of 20 points by several experimental design
methods are shown in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the sampling
points generated by uniform design and LHS are uniformly distrib-
uted. While the points generated by random sampling are not that
uniformly distributed and some points are replicated.
4.2.3. Sampling size for computer experiments
ð20Þ for determining the amount of the sampling data. In most cases,
the total training data number for reliability analysis is still arbi-
trarily determined. However, in principle the number of sampling
points required to accurately establish the limit state function is
dependent on the number of random variables and the nonlinear-
ity of the problem considered [39]. Loeppky et al. [43] provide rea-
sons and evidence supporting the informal rule that the number of
runs for an effective initial computer experiment should be about
10 times the input dimension. Silvestrini et al. [44] also found that
design performance did not change dramatically between 10D and
15D, although they recommended N = 15D as a generally safe rule
of thumb for sample size.
4.3. MCS using GPR-based response surface for system reliability
analysis
A polynomial of fixed degree, e.g., a quadratic polynomial, is
unable to approximate the limit states with highly nonlinearity
accurately. Therefore, it is preferable to use a more flexible Gauss-
ian process regression model, which has a form suited to the
 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25 17

1 Step 1: Define the problem. Including specify the random vari-

ables and their probabilistic characteristics, define the limit
0.8 state function.
Step 2: Generate sample points. LHS is adopted to generate suit-
able training sample points and uniform design is used to gen-
0.6
erate uniformly distributed testing sample points.
2

Step 3: Build datasets for GPR. Sample sets consist of the sample
x

0.4 points and their corresponding performance function values.

The values of factor of safety at sample points, determined by
0.2 a limit equilibrium method or other mathematical modeling
techniques, are used to determine the performance function
0
values.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Step 4: Establish GPR-based response surface. The GPR approach
x was adopted to approximate the performance function. Firstly
1
(a) we have to determine the covariance function and training
algorithm for GPR model. Then establish the GPR-based
1 response surface using the training sample sets obtained in pre-
vious 2 steps.
0.8 Step 5: Check the accuracy of the GPR model. Accuracy of the
established GPR-based response surface is checked by using
the testing samples obtained in Step 1 and step 2. If the accu-
0.6
racy is not satisfied, we have to return to step 1 and generate
2

more training sample points to get a more accurate response

x

0.4 surface.
Step 6: Calculate the probability of failure. MCS is adopted to cal-
0.2 culate the system failure probability based on the established

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Start
x
1
(b)
Define the problem
1

Prepare data sets: Generate sample points using

0.8 LHS and uniform design

0.6
Prepare data sets: Calculate the factor of safety
x2

corresponding to the input

0.4

0.2 Establish the GPR-based response surface using

samples generated by LHS
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
x
1
(c) No Is the GPR model
acceptable?
Fig. 2. Comparison of sampling point distributions generated by different sampling
methods in 2D: (a) random sampling; (b) Latin hypercube sampling; (c) uniform
design. Yes

Calculate the failure probability by Monte Carlo

nonlinearity of the true limit state function. According to Eq. (16), simulation
the response surface based on GPR can be expressed as
1
gðxÞ ¼ GPRðxÞ ¼ Kðx; XÞ½KðX; XÞ þ r2 I y ð21Þ
No Is the accuracy of Pf
In order to establish the above GPR response surface, a training
acceptable?
process based on the known data set is needed. Computer experi-
ments method LHS is adopted to design the training samples and
uniform design is adopted to generate the testing samples. The cor- Yes
responding factor of safety of each sample is calculated by the sim-
plified Bishop method. End
The procedure of the proposed GPR response surface based MCS
method for system reliability analysis of soil slopes is summarized Fig. 3. Flowchart of system probabilistic slope stability analysis utilizing GPR-based
in the flowchart in Fig. 3 and described in detail as follows: response surface.
18 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25

30 GPR-based response surface. The calculated results are com-

pared with the results obtained by other methods to verify its
Elevation (m)

20 efficiency and accuracy.

18
0.75 Clay 1
1
10
5. Numerical examples

10
Clay 2
4

0
Hard layer To illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach, five
-10 benchmark examples of probabilistic slope stability analysis prob-
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 lems were considered. Before running a GP model, the hyperpa-
Horizontal distance (m) rameters should be initialized [45]. According to experiences rf
was set as ln rf = 0, li was set as ln li = 0. Computer experiments
Fig. 4. Cross-section of example 1.
points were generated fall within the range [lx  3rx, lx + 3rx] in
example 1–4 [32,39], and [lx  4rx, lx + 4rx] in example 5. The
number of samples generated by LHS to establish the GPR response
surface was firstly tested as N = 10D, if the accuracy was not
Table 1 acceptable, then N = 15D would be adopted. The samples were
Statistical properties of soil parameters in example 1.
assessed by Bishop’s simplified method to obtain the values of fac-
Slope layers Unit weight, c (kN/m3) Undrained strength, cu (kPa) tor of safety. The number of test samples generated by uniform
Mean COV Distribution design was set as 20. The accuracy of GPR model for predicting
Clay 1 19.0 120 0.3 Lognormal
the factor of safety is measured by some statistical criteria, such
Clay 2 19.0 160 0.3 Lognormal as the mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE),
correlation coefficient (R).

500 400

450 350
400 300
350
250
300
cu2 (kPa)

cu2 (kPa)

200
250
150
200
100
150

100 50

50 0

0 -50
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
cu1 (kPa) cu1 (kPa)
(a) (b)
Fig. 5. Points generated by MCS with 20,000 samplings under different distributions: (a) lognormal; (b) normal.

4 4
Case points Case points
3.5 Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted) 3.5 F =F
s (calculated) s (predicted)

3 3
Predicted factor of safety

Predicted factor of safety

2.5 2.5

2 2

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Calculated factor of safety Calculated factor of safety
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. Comparison between values of factor of safety predicted by GPR model and calculated by the limit equilibrium method in example 1: (a) training data; (b) test data.
 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25 19

Table 2 5
Performance of the GPR-based response surface in example 1. 20 2
Embankment 1 1

10
Data sets MAE RMSE R

Elevation (m)
2.5 Layer 1
Training 0.0116 0.0148 0.9998 10
Testing 0.0543 0.0677 0.9973 Foundation Layer 2

10
(Soft soil)
0
Hard Layer

-8
5.1. Example 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Horizontal distance (m)
The first example is a slope passing through two clay layers,
Fig. 7. Cross-section of example 2.
taken from the work of Ching et al. [17]. The geometry of the slope
is shown in Fig. 4 and the soil parameters are given in Table 1.
Points generated by MCS with 20,000 samplings under different
distributions are shown in Fig. 5. This example was also analyzed Table 4
Statistical properties of soil parameters in example 2.
by Low et al. [12], Zhang et al. [24], Ji and Low [14] and Cho [21].
In this example, Bishop’s simplified method and the ordinary Layer 1 Layer 2
method of slices yield the same results, because the shear c1 (kPa) u1 (°) c2 (kPa) u2 (°)
strengths are characterized by cohesion cu with friction angle
Distribution Normal Normal Normal –
uu = 0. The factor of safety based on mean values of soil properties Mean 10 12 40 0
was found to be 1.993, which is very close with the value 1.992 COV 0.2 0.25 0.2 0
obtained by Cho [21]. The deterministic critical slip surface passes c (kN/m3) 20 18
through Clay 1 and 2, while the probabilistic critical surface
searched by the FORM only passes through Clay 1 [21]. There are
two representative failure modes or slip surfaces as identified by
the value of MCS. As shown in Table 3, the failure probability
Low et al. [12], Zhang et al. [24], and Cho [21]. The first one passes
obtained by the proposed method is close to the value obtained
through Clay 1 and the second one passed through both layers.
by MCS and several other system reliability analysis methods.
When N = 10D, the obtained failure probability Pf is 0.52% using
the proposed methodology with 100,000 samplings, which is quite
far from the value obtained by MCS method. Therefore we increase 5.2. Example 2
in the number of LHS samples to N = 15D = 30. The comparison
between values of factor of safety calculated by Bishop’s simplified This example is taken from Chowdhury and Xu [11], and it con-
method and predicted by GPR model is shown in Fig. 6. The accu- cerns a fill embankment resting on a clay layer. The geometry of
racy of the GPR model is presented in Table 2. From Table 2 and the slope is shown in Fig. 7 and the soil parameters are given in
Fig. 6, it can be seen that the GPR model perform well to predict Table 4. This example was also analysed by Ji and Low [14], Zhang
the factor of safety. et al. [19] and Cho [21]. The factor of safety based on mean values
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for this of soil properties was found to be 1.159, which is very close with
example are listed in Table 3. It can be seen that the single-point the value 1.164 obtained by Cho [21]. The deterministic critical slip
FORM analysis yielded a probability of failure much smaller than surface passes through the embankment fill, while the probabilis-
the failure probabilities obtained by system reliability analysis tic critical surface searched by the conventional FORM passed
methods. Therefore single-mode FORM analysis significantly through both embankment and soft clay foundation [21]. There
underestimated the failure probability, and MCS methods provided are two representative failure modes or slip surfaces as identified
unbiased estimates for the failure probability. Meanwhile, classical by Ji and Low [14], Zhang et al. [19], and Cho [21]. The first one
RSM is not able to approximate the nonlinear performance func- passes through the embankment fill and the second one passed
tion accurately, since the obtained failure probability is far from through both embankment and soft clay foundation.

Table 3
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for example 1.

Probabilistic method Slope stability model Failure probability, Pf Refs.

MCS with 10,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.44% (COV = 15.04%) Ching et al. [17]
Importance Sampling with 1000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.41% (COV = 6.62%) Ching et al. [17]
FORM Bishop simplified method 0.16% Ching et al. [17]
System reliability bounds Bishop simplified method 0.432–0.441% Low et al. [12]
FORM system reliability bounds based on stratified RSM Bishop simplified method 0.402–0.411% Ji and Low [14]
MCS based on stratified RSM with 50,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.390% Ji and Low [14]
MCS using slide V6.0 with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.405% Ji and Low [14]
MCS using Kriging-based RSM Bishop simplified method 0.458% (COV = 4.7%) Zhang et al. [23]
Eq. (20) combined with MCS Bishop simplified method 0.170% (COV = 7.7%) Zhang et al. [23]
System reliability bounds Bishop simplified method 0.431–0.439% Cho [21]
MCS with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.415% Cho [21]
Multi-point FORM Bishop simplified method 0.436% Cho [21]
Single-point FORM Bishop simplified method 0.259% Cho [21]
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.400% (COV = 11.2%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 50,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.382% (COV = 7.2%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.388% (COV = 5.1%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 1,000,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 0.384% (COV = 1.6%) This study
20 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25

2 2
Case points Case points
Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted) Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted)
Predicted factor of safety

Predicted factor of safety

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Calculated factor of safety Calculated factor of safety
(a) (b)
Fig. 8. Comparison between values of factor of safety predicted by GPR model and calculated by the limit equilibrium method in example 2: (a) training data; (b) test data.

Table 5 20
Performance of the GPR-based response surface in example 2.
(33.28,15.24) (48.28,15.24)
Elevation (m)
Data sets MAE RMSE R 15
2

9.14
Training 0.0060 0.0083 0.9995
10 1 Layer 1
Testing 0.0308 0.0429 0.9908
(15,6.1) (48.28,6.1)
5 (0,6.1)

6.1
Layer 2
In this example, the number of LHS samples was set to N = 10D. 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
The comparison between values of factor of safety calculated by
Bishop’s simplified method and predicted by GPR model is shown Horizontal distance (m)
in Fig. 8. The accuracy of the GPR model is shown in Table 5. From
Fig. 9. Cross-section of example 3.
Table 5 and Fig. 8, it can be seen that the GPR model perform well
to predict the factor of safety. Results of probabilistic analysis by
different methods for this example are listed in Table 6. As shown Table 7
in Table 6, the failure probability obtained by the proposed method Statistical properties of soil parameters in example 3.
is close to the value obtained by MCS and several other system reli- Layer 1 Layer 2
ability analysis methods.
c1 (kPa) u1 (°) c2 (kPa) u2 (°)
Distribution Normal Normal Normal –
Mean 38.31 0 23.94 12
5.3. Example 3
COV 0.2 0 0.2 0.1
c (kN/m3) 19.0 19.0
The third example is presented by Hassan and Wolff [4]. The
geometry of the slope is shown in Fig. 9 and the soil parameters
are given in Table 7. This example was also analyzed by Xu and The factor of safety based on mean values of soil properties was
Low [7], Xue and Gavin [5], Cho [21], Chowdhury and Rao [46], found to be 1.652, which is very close with the value 1.651
Kang et al. [6], Luo et al. [9], Zhang et al. [19]. obtained by Xu and Low [7] using Spencer method with circular

Table 6
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for example 2.

Probabilistic method Slope stability model Failure probability, Pf Refs.

System reliability bounds Bishop simplified method 22.7–44.9% Chowdhury and Xu [11]
FORM system reliability bounds based on stratified RSM Spencer method with circular slip surface 31.7–36.3% Ji and Low [14]
MCS based on stratified RSM with 50,000 samplings Spencer method with circular slip surface 35.75% Ji and Low [14]
Slide V6.0 with 2000 samplings Spencer method with circular slip surface 36.1% Ji and Low [14]
MCS applied to the most critical slip surface with 10,000 samples Bishop simplified method 20.9% (COV = 3.2%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS applied to the representative slip surface with 10,000 samples Bishop simplified method 35.6% (COV = 2.1%) Zhang et al. [19]
System reliability bounds Bishop simplified method 31.740–36.148% Cho [21]
MCS with 20,000 data sets Bishop simplified method 36.555% Cho [21]
Multi-point FORM Bishop simplified method 35.939% Cho [21]
Single-point FORM Bishop simplified method 20.6% Cho [21]
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 10,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 38.3% (COV = 1.3%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 38.4% (COV = 0.9%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 38.4% (COV = 0.4%) This study
 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25 21

2.5 2.5
Case points Case points
Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted) Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted)

2 2
Predicted factor of safety

Predicted factor of safety

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Calculated factor of safety Calculated factor of safety
(a) (b)
Fig. 10. Comparison between values of factor of safety predicted by GPR model and calculated by the limit equilibrium method in example 3: (a) training data; (b) test data.

Table 8 15 (20.0,13.5)
Performance of the GPR-based response surface in example 3.
Elevation (m)
(0.0,13.5)
Clay 1 (33.5,9.0)
Data sets MAE RMSE R
10 (38.0,7.5) (60.0,7.5)
(0.0,9.0) Clay 2
Training 0.0012 0.0016 1.0000 5
Testing 0.0159 0.0203 0.9989 (0.0,4.5) Clay 3 (60.0,4.5)
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Horizontal distance (m)
slip surface. The position of deterministic critical slip surface and
probabilistic critical slip surface can be seen in Kang et al. [6]. Fig. 11. Cross-section of example 4.
In this example, the number of LHS samples was set to
N = 10D = 30. The comparison between values of factor of safety
calculated by Bishop’s simplified method and predicted by GPR
model is shown in Fig. 10. The accuracy of the GPR model is shown
Table 10
in Table 8. From Table 8 and Fig. 10, it can be seen that the GPR Statistical properties of soil parameters in example 4.
model performs well to predict the factor of safety. Results of prob-
Slope layers Unit weight, c (kN/m3) Undrained strength, cu (kPa)
abilistic analysis from different methods for this example are listed
in Table 9. As shown in Table 9, the failure probability obtained by Mean COV Distribution
the proposed method is close to the value obtained by MCS other Clay 1 18.0 18 0.3 Normal
reliability analysis methods. In this example, the system effect is Clay 2 18.0 20 0.2 Normal
not obvious [19], and the failure probability of the most critical slip Clay 3 18.0 25 0.3 Normal

surface is approximately equal to the system failure probability.

5.4. Example 4 In this example, Bishop’s simplified method, the ordinary

method of slices and Spencer’s method with a circular slip surface
The fourth example is an adaptation from the work of Feng and yield the same result, because the shear strengths are character-
Fredlund [47] by Zhang et al. [19]. The geometry of the slope is ized by cohesion cu with friction angle uu = 0. The factor of safety
shown in Fig. 11 and the soil parameters are given in Table 10. based on mean values of soil properties was found to be 1.282.

Table 9
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for example 3. The variables are assumed normally distributed.

Probabilistic method Slope stability model Failure probability, Pf Refs.

FORM implemented in spreadsheet Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.39% Xu and Low [7]
Response surface method combined with FORM Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.32% Xu and Low [7]
ANN based RSM combined with MCS with 200,000 samples Shear strength reduction 1.38% Cho [21]
ANN based RSM combined with FORM Shear strength reduction 1.43% Cho [21]
MCS with 100,000 samples Bishop simplified method 1.38% (COV = 0.84%) Chowdhury and Rao [46]
First-order HDMR Bishop simplified method 1.41% Chowdhury and Rao [46]
Second-order HDMR Bishop simplified method 1.29% Chowdhury and Rao [46]
FORM based on differential evolution Bishop simplified method 1.39% Kang et al. [6]
MCS applied to the most critical slip surface Bishop simplified method 1.36% (COV = 2.7%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS applied to the representative slip surface with 100,000 samples Bishop simplified method 1.36% (COV = 2.7%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.39% (COV = 2.7%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 200,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.40% (COV = 1.9%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,0000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.40% (COV = 0.8%) This study
22 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25

2.5 2.5
Case points Case points
Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted) Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted)
2 2
Predicted factor of safety

Predicted factor of safety

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Calculated factor of safety Calculated factor of safety
(a) (b)
Fig. 12. Comparison between values of factor of safety predicted by GPR model and calculated by the limit equilibrium method in example 4: (a) training data; (b) test data.

Table 11 40
Performance of the GPR-based response surface in example 4.
(50,35) (70,35)
Data sets MAE RMSE R Elevation (m) 35
Layer 1
Training 0.0029 0.0041 0.9999
Testing 0.0621 0.0823 0.9812 30 (54,31) (70,31)
(50,29) Layer 2
25 (40,27) (52,24) (70,24)
(20,25) (30,25)
The critical deterministic slip surface passes through Clay 1 and 2, Layer 3
while the critical probabilistic surface searched by the Zhang et al. 20
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
[19] passes through all three layers.
Horizontal distance (m)
In this example, the number of LHS samples was set to
N = 10D = 30. The comparison between values of factor of safety Fig. 13. Cross-section of example 5.
calculated by Bishop’s simplified method and predicted by GPR
model is shown in Fig. 12. The accuracy of the GPR model is shown
in Table 11. From Table 11 and Fig. 12, it can be seen that the GPR
Table 13
model performs well to predict the factor of safety. Results of prob- Statistical properties of soil parameters in example 5.
abilistic analysis by different methods for this example are listed in
Slope layers Unit weight Cohesion (kPa) Friction angle (°)
Table 12. As shown in Table 12, the failure probability obtained by
the proposed method is close to the value obtained by MCS several c (kN/m3) Mean COV Mean COV
other system reliability analysis methods. Layer 1 19.5 0 NA 38 NA
Layer 2 19.5 5.3 0.3 23 0.2
Layer 3 19.5 7.2 0.3 20 0.2
5.5. Example 5
Note: NA = not applicable. Normal distribution is assumed for the random variables.
The fifth example is taken from the work of Ji and Low [14], and
it is adapted from a test problem of Association for Computer Aided methodology with 100,000 samplings, which is quite far from the
Design, Australia (ACADS). The geometry of the slope is shown in value obtained by MCS method. Therefore we increase the number
Fig. 13 and the soil parameters are given in Table 13. This example of LHS samples to N = 15D = 60. Meanwhile, we found that the fac-
was also analyzed by Zhang et al. [19]. The factor of safety based on tor of safety is Fs = 0.970 when the parameters of layer 2 are
mean values of soil properties was found to be 1.405, which is very adopted as lx  3rx and layer 3 with relatively large parameter
close with the value 1.406 obtained by Ji and Low [14] using Spen- values. The critical slip surface in this case is shown in Fig. 14.
cer method with circular slip surface. Because Fs = 1.0 is the boundary of safety and failure, it is hard
When N = 10D and LHS sampling range is [lx  3rx, lx + 3rx], for the LHS to generate enough samples to capture the failure
the obtained failure probability Pf is 1.85% using the proposed mode that only pass through layer 1 and layer 2.

Table 12
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for example 4.

Probabilistic method Slope stability model Failure probability, Pf Refs.

MCS with 10,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 18.7% (COV = 2.1%) Zhang et al. [19]
Extended Hassan and Wolff method with 10,000 samples Bishop simplified method 18.4% (COV = 2.1%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS applied to the most critical slip surface with 10,000 samples Bishop simplified method 12.0% (COV = 2.7%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 10,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 18.6% (COV = 2.1%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 18.5% (COV = 1.5%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 18.6% (COV = 0.7%) This study
 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25 23

35 Table 14
Performance of the GPR-based response surface in example 5.
Elevation (m)

30 Data sets MAE RMSE R

Training 0.0026 0.0032 0.9999
25 Testing 0.0217 0.0292 0.9936

20
20 30 40
Horizontal distance (m)
Fig. 14. The critical deterministic slip surface passes through layer 1 and 2.
To improve he accuracy, the sampling range is modified to
[lx  4rx, lx + 4rx] and the number of LHS samples was set to
N = 15D. The points generated by MCS with 50,000 samplings are
shown in Fig. 15. It can be seen that the adopted range can cover
almost all the sampling points. Therefore, it is more conservative.
The comparison between values of factor of safety calculated by
Bishop’s simplified method and predicted by GPR model is shown
in Fig. 16. The accuracy of the GPR model is shown in Table 14.
From Table 14 and Fig. 16, it can be seen that the GPR model
50 60 70
perform well to predict the factor of safety. Results of probabilistic
analysis by different methods for this example are listed in
Table 15. It can be observed that the value of failure probability
obtained by the proposed method is close to the value obtained
by MCS and several other system reliability analysis methods.
6. Discussion
Results of the five examples verified the effectiveness of the
proposed method for system reliability analysis of soil slopes. From
the examples, we recommend the range for generating samples
from LHS should be [lx  4rx, lx + 4rx] for normal distributed vari-
ables and the number of samples generated by the LHS should be

(a) (b)
Fig. 15. Points generated by MCS with 50,000 samplings of different soil layers: (a) layer 2; (b) layer 3.

2 2
Case points Case points
1.8
Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted) Fs (calculated) = Fs (predicted)
1.6
Predicted factor of safety

Predicted factor of safety

1.4
1.5
1.2

0.8
1
0.6

0.4

0.2

0 0.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0.5 1 1.5 2
Calculated factor of safety Calculated factor of safety
(a) (b)
Fig. 16. Comparison between values of factor of safety predicted by GPR model and calculated by the limit equilibrium method in example 5: (a) training data; (b) test data.
24 F. Kang et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 63 (2015) 13–25

Table 15
Results of probabilistic analysis by different methods for example 5. The variables are assumed normally distributed.

Probabilistic method Slope stability model Failure probability, Pf Refs.

FORM system reliability bounds Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.08–1.30% Ji and Low [14]
SORM system reliability bounds Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.35–1.53% Ji and Low [14]
MCS based on stratified RSM with 50,000 samplings Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.34% Ji and Low [14]
Slide V6.0 with 20,000 samplings Spencer method with circular slip surface 1.40% Ji and Low [14]
MCS with 50,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.33% (COV = 3.8%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS applied to the most critical slip surface with 50,000 samples Bishop simplified method 1.01% (COV = 4.4%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS applied to the representative slip surfaces with 50,000 samples Bishop simplified method 1.08% (COV = 4.3%) Zhang et al. [19]
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 20,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.61% (COV = 5.5%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 50,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.59 (COV = 3.5%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 100,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.59 (COV = 2.5%) This study
MCS using GPR-based RSM with 1,000,000 samplings Bishop simplified method 1.59 (COV = 0.8%) This study

tested on five benchmark problems and has shown very reliable

7 performance. Compared with other recently proposed algorithms
Example 1
T i m e fo r M C S u s i n g G P R -b a s e d R S M (s )

Example 2 for system reliability analysis of slopes, the proposed new method
6 Example 3 has demonstrated strong competitive capabilities in terms of con-
Example 4 venience and efficiency.
5 Example 5

Conflict of interest
4

There is no conflict of interest in this study.

3

2 Acknowledgements

1 This research was supported by National Natural Science Foun-

0 ship Fund of China to pursue study in the USA as a visiting scholar
0 200000
Number of samplings
Fig. 17. Time for MCS using GPR-based response surface method.
15D to obtain conservative results. The sample size is consistent
with the findings of Loeppky et al. [43] and Silvestrini et al. [44],
as stated in Section 4.2.3.
The time cost for MCS using GPR-based response surface
method is illustrated in Fig. 17. Computational experiments are
performed on a general personal computer: A T420 ThinkPad lap-
top with Intel Core i5-2450 M, 2.50 GHz processor and 3 GB RAM.
It can be observed that the time increase linearly with the number
of samplings, and it is less than 7 s for the five examples when the
number of samplings is under 1,000,000. The total time for system
reliability analysis will be the summation of the time for 15D
deterministic slope stability analysis and the time for MCS utilizing
GPR-based RSM. When D is large, the number, N of deterministic
slope stability analysis, is also large, and the computational cost
for constructing the response surfaces is high. Therefore, the pro-
posed method may have difficulty in modeling spatial variability
by random fields (i.e., the number of random variables D is large).
Further studies will be performed on this problem.
7. Conclusion
A novel approach based on Gaussian process regression and
Latin hypercube sampling has been proposed for system probabi-
listic slope stability evaluation. In the proposed approach, Gaussian
process regression is used for establishing the response surface to
approximate the limit state function based on the samples gener-
ated by Latin hypercube sampling. Then, Monte Carlo simulation
is performed via the GPR response surface to estimate the system
failure probability of slopes. The proposed methodology has been
dation of China under Grant No. 51109028, and the State Scholar-
400000 600000 800000 1000000 under Grant No. 201208210208.
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