Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

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Computers and Geotechnics

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Research Paper

A strength reduction method based on the Generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) T

criterion for rock slope stability analysis
Yuan Wei, Li Jiaxin, Li Zonghong, Wang Wei , Sun Xiaoyun
⁎

School of Civil Engineering, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang 050043, China

Hebei Technology and Innovation Center on Safe and Efficient Mining of Metal Mines, Shijiazhuang 050043, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The strength reduction method (SRM) combining with the Generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) criterion has become
Strength reduction method a widely used means to assess the stability of rock slopes. Therefore, various efforts have been made to establish
Generalized Hoek-Brown criterion a standard reduction strategy for strength parameters. This paper presents a new nonlinear SRM based on the
Safety factor GHB criterion, and the core novelty of the proposed method is to provide a reduction strategy with precise
Slope stability analysis
physical meaning to find an optimal set of parameters that trigger rock slope failure. To verify the validity of the
Rock slope
proposed method, two illustrative examples are analyzed. The results show that the proposed method could lead
Fractured rock mass
to a reasonable safety factor, and the critical sliding surface obtained by the proposed method can reflect the
tensile crack in the steep slope. Finally, to distinguish the computational results and efficiency among the
proposed method and other preexisting reduction methods, other more 8 slopes selected from the literature are
used for research objects. The results show that the safety factors resulted from the proposed method are very
close to those acquired by the most accurate method available at present (Hammah’s method), however, its
computational efficiency is comparatively higher than that of Hammah’s method.

1. Introduction
It is generally accepted that rock masses have strongly nonlinear
failure characteristics that cannot be accurately represented by the
linear Mohr-Coulomb (MC) criterion. To surmount the shortcomings of
the conventional MC criterion, an empirical failure criterion called the
Hoek-Brown (HB) criterion has been proposed to estimate rock mass's
strength from laboratory test data and field observations [14,11]. The
latest version of the HB criterion is the Generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB)
criterion, presented in 2002, and it has developed into one of the most
broadly adopted failure criteria in rock engineering. This criterion can
provide an accurate failure prediction for homogeneous and isotropic
rocks with few discontinuities or rock masses that are heavily jointed
[17,26,27]. In slope engineering, an applicable failure criterion com-
bining with an appropriate analysis method are necessary to provide an
accurate assessment of the slope stability. Presently, the strength re-
duction method (SRM), first proposed by Zienkiewicz et al. [37], has
received increasing attention and increasingly broad acceptance from
many researchers of slope stability analysis because of its many parti-
cular advantages over the traditional rigid limit equilibrium method
(LEM). However, the strength reduction technique is mostly applied
based on the linear MC criterion, and only two shear strength
parameters (i.e., cohesion and friction coefficient) are reduced during
the whole process from the initial state to slope failure. The safety
factor of the slope could be directly defined as the ratio of the rock-
mass’s actual shear strength to its reduced shear strength at failure
[10,20,26,28,33,36]. Thus, bringing the GHB criterion into the SRM to
analyze the stability of rock slopes could be greatly valuable in practice.
In the past 20 years, many researchers have devoted efforts to in-
vestigate and implement the SRM for use with the nonlinear GHB cri-
terion, which is simply called the nonlinear strength reduction method
(NSRM) for short. Many different NSRMs can be classified into three
types:
(1) All or some of the parameters involved in the GHB criterion are
directly reduced by the reduction factor until slope collapse occurs,
and the global safety factor is traditionally defined as the ratio of
the original parameters to the minimum parameters required to
prevent slope failure. This reduction strategy could be defined as
the ‘direct reduction method’. For example, Wu et al. [32] sug-
gested that the uniaxial compressive strength of the intact rock (σci)
and the hardness of the intact rock (mi) are strength indexes,
whereas the other parameters in the GHB criterion are not strength
indexes. Thus, only σci and mi should be reduced when the NSRM is

⁎
Corresponding author at: School of Civil Engineering, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang 050043, China.
E-mail address: wangweiuuu@163.com (W. Wei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2019.103240
Received 22 May 2019; Received in revised form 4 September 2019; Accepted 4 September 2019
0266-352X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Wei, et al.
used to calculate the safety factor of a rock slope [32]. Song et al.
[25] discussed seven cases of the direct reduction method, and the
results showed that only directly reducing σci and the geological
strength index (GSI ) could obtain a reasonable global safety factor.
However, Fu and Liao [12] argued that it is not possible to exactly
implement the NSRM by directly reducing mechanical parameters
involved in the GHB criterion. Once the original GHB failure en-
velope has been reduced by the direct reduction method, the stress
state of all failure points in the slope may no longer relate to the
same GHB criterion. In short, the direct reduction method could
lead to the distortion of the GHB failure envelope after the para-
meters are reduced, and the determination of which parameters
involved in the GHB criterion should be reduced lack a sufficient
theoretical basis.
(2) The envelope of the GHB criterion is integrally lowered by a re-
duction factor during the reduction process, and the global safety
factor is thought to be the reduction factor that exactly brings the
slope to the critical failure state. For example, Hammah et al. [13]
presented a global reduction method of the GHB criterion envelope
that is implemented in the commercial finite element program
Phase2D. This method first generates the shear envelope of the GHB
criterion and then lowers the shear envelope by a factor, then de-
termines a new equivalent GHB curve that best approximates the
lowered shear envelope. Furthermore, Thomas Benz et al. [30] used
the Roscoe invariants p and q to describe the GHB and MC criteria
in the same principal stress space and deviatoric plane, connected
the GHB criterion and the MC criterion in the p q plane. Two
different reduction factors, and , are introduced into the GHB
and MC criteria, respectively, then, the relationship between and
is established. Finally, the reduction factor for the MC criterion
is changed to determine a globally reduced GHB criterion according
to the - relationship. Evidently, this reduction method is the
most precise method at present, and it successfully applies the
traditional concept of shear strength reduction to the GHB criterion.
However, this method requires many iterative computations to
obtain the shear strength of each element at every reduction step,
which greatly lowers the calculation efficiency.
(3) The nonlinear GHB criterion is transformed into the equivalent MC
criterion, and the derived equivalent shear strength parameters
(i.e., cohesion and friction angle) are used as the input parameters
in the slope stability analysis. In fact, the GHB criterion is not ac-
tually applied in the elastoplastic analysis and is replaced by the
equivalent MC criterion. Thus, this NSRM is implemented by re-
ducing the equivalent cohesion and friction angle [5]. In principle,
there are two different equivalent methods for transforming the
GHB criterion into the MC criterion: (a) integral linearization, i.e.,
approximation of the nonlinear failure envelope by a best-fit line-
arization, and (b) local linearization, i.e., determination of the in-
stantaneous cohesion and friction angle according to the local stress
state. The most popular integral linearization method was proposed
by Hoek et al. [17] and estimates the equivalent shear strength
parameters within the artificial scope of [ tmass, 3 max ], where tmass
is the uniaxial tensile strength of the rock mass and 3 max is the
upper bound of the minor principal stress. Within this specified
range, the area covered by the GHB criterion in the 3 1 co-
ordinate axis is the same as that covered by the MC criterion. Ac-
cording to this integral linearization method, Li et al. [21] estab-
lished stability analysis charts for rock slopes. In the local
linearization method, deriving analytical expressions for the
equivalent cohesion and friction angle at a given normal stress from
the GHB criterion may be greatly challenging [3]. Nevertheless,
various approximate analytical solutions, including implicit and
explicit expressions, are proposed to calculate the instantaneous
cohesion and friction angle [15,8,4,22,9,23]. In general, the in-
stantaneous shear strength parameters are solved for iteratively
with heavy computations. Sukanya et al. [27] proposed a
2
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
comparative study of these two linearization methods in the NSRM.
The results show that the global linearization approach can lead to
a deviation of up to 15% in comparison to the local approach, and
slope stability analysis by means of the global linearization ap-
proach could result in overestimation of the safety margin and
uneconomic slope design. Clearly, this method is the roughest cal-
culation method at present, and it produces a larger deviation from
the true safety factor.
In this paper, a new NSRM that is completely different from the
preexisting reduction strategies is proposed. Its core concept is to search
an appropriate reduction pathway for all the parameters involved in the
GHB criterion and provide a more reasonable definition of the global
slope safety factor. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method,
several examples are applied for researching the differences between
preexisting NSRMs using the GHB criterion and the proposed method.
2. Slope critical failure state curve based on the GHB criterion
2.1. Introduction of the GHB criterion
The equation of the GHB criterion in principal stress space is given
by:
mb 3
1 = 3 + ci +s
ci (1)
where 1 and 3 are the major and minor principal stresses of the rock
mass at failure, respectively. Note that compressive stress is considered
positive in this article. ci is the uniaxial compressive strength of the
intact rock. mb , s , and are empirical parameters used to reflect the
characteristics of different fractured rock masses. Hoek et al. [16,17,11]
showed that the geological strength index (GSI ) combining with the
disturbance factor (D) of a rock mass and the material constant of the
intact rock (mi ) could be used to express mb , s and , as follows:
mb = exp ( GSI 100
28 14D )m i
s = exp ( GSI 100
9 3D )
exp ( ) ( )
1 GSI 20
= 0.5 + exp
6 15 3 (2)
where GSI could be estimated according to the structural features of the
discontinuities in the rock mass, varying from 5 (for a highly fractured
and damaged rock mass) to 100 (for intact rock) [24], D reflects the
degree of influence to which the rock mass has been subjected by blast
damage or stress relaxation due to excavation, ranging from 0.0 (for
undisturbed in situ rock masses) to 1.0 (for disturbed rock masses) [17],
and mi represents the rock type and hardness, which ranges from 1 to
40 and can be determined according to the direct tensile test combining
with the uniaxial compressive test of intact rock [7]:
mi = ci ti
ti ci (3)
where ti is the uniaxial tensile strength of the intact rock.
As noted by Hoek et al. [17], Eq. (1) could be used to estimate the
uniaxial compressive strength ( cmass ) and uniaxial tensile strength
( tmass ) of a rock mass. The uniaxial compressive strength is obtained by
setting 3 = 0 in Eq. (1), and the uniaxial tensile strength is obtained by
setting 1 = 3 = tmass in Eq. (1). Notably, the uniaxial tensile strength
is equal to the biaxial tensile strength for brittle materials [14]. Thus,
their expressions are given by:
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

l s dl s
cmass = ci· s = ci· = 1.0 = f1
m dl (10)
{( )·{0.5 + }}
m
( ) ( )
GSI 100 1 GSI 20 l
exp 9 3D 6
exp 15
exp 3
where l denotes the potential sliding surface; s is the resistant shear
tmass =
s ci
= ci
·exp
(GSI 100)·(19 11D ) stress; and m is the driving shear stress, which greatly depends on the
mb mi (9 3D)·(28 14D ) (4) gravity of the overlying rock mass above the potential sliding surface
For the stress state at any point, Balmer et al. [2] proposed that ( H ) . Thus, Eq. (10) is expressed as:
normal stress ( n) and shear stress ( ) could be expressed as functions of s
the principal stresses and are given by: f2 = 1.0
H (11)
( 1 3)
n = 3 + 1 +1
According to Eq. (7), the following equation could be given:
3
mb 3 +s
=( n 3)
1
ci
(5)
ns 3
3 = + 1
ci ci 3 +s
2 + mb mb
Differentiating Eq. (1) with respect to 3, the following is obtained: ci

3
mb +s

( )+s
1 1
ci
1 mb s
= 1 + mb mb 3
= 1+ mb 3 +s ci
1
ci
(6)
3
2 + mb mb +s
3 ci ci (12)
Substituting Eq. (6) into Eq. (5), the GHB criterion is expressed in Clearly, for the given ns , mb , s and , the minor principal stress 3
terms of the normal stress and shear stress on the failure plane in ac- can be calculated by an iterative solution. Once 3 is determined, the
cordance with the equations given below: shear stress s is obtained. Thus, s/ ci can be expressed as:
mb 3
ci +s s ns
ci = f3 , mb , s,
ns = 3 + 1 ci ci (13)
m
2 + mb b 3 + s
ci
The value of ns depends on the gravity of the overlying rock mass
( )
1
s =( ns 3) 1 + mb
mb 3
+s H and the slope angle only under the condition of gravity. Thus, Eq.
ci (7) (13) can be expressed as:
where ns and s denote the normal stress and shear stress on the failure H
s
plane, respectively. According to Eq. (7), the instantaneous cohesion = f4 , mb , , s,
ci ci (14)
and friction angle could be estimated by locating the tangent of the
GHB envelope under a given normal stress. The instantaneous friction Substituting Eq. (14) into Eq. (11), the following equation can be
angle is equal to the angle between the tangent and horizontal axes, and obtained as:
the instantaneous cohesion is the intercept with the vertical axis. The
H
instantaneous cohesion and friction angle are calculated according to f2 ci
f4 , mb, , s, = f5 ci
, mb , , s , = 1.0
the method proposed by Detournay et al. [9], given by: H ci H (15)
According to Eq. (2), mb , s and are the functions of GSI , D and mi .
= 2tan 1 ( N )
E 2 Thus, Eq. (15) is expressed as:
UCS
cE = 2 N
(8) f6 ci
, GSI , D , mi , = 1.0
H (16)
where E and cE represent the instantaneous friction angle and cohe-
sion, respectively; and N and UCS are both functions of the minor According to Eq. (4), cmass is a function of ci , GSI and D . Thus, Eq.
principal stress 3 : (16) is finally expressed as:

( )
1
3 cmass
N = 1 + mb mb +s f7 , mi , = f7 ( , mi , ) = 1.0
ci H (17)
UCS = 3 (1 N)+ ci (m b
3
ci
+s ) (9) where = cmass / H is a dimensionless parameter.
We derive Eq. (17) to illustrate that these parameters, including ,
H , and all the parameters involved in the GHB criterion, should sa-
2.2. Theoretical relationships among slope parameters in the critical failure tisfy this equation when any slope reaches the critical failure state. The
state curve corresponding to Eq. (17) is the slope critical failure state curve
(CFSC).
The stability of the slope is determined by the unit weight of the
rock mass ( ), the slope height (H ), the slope angle ( ) and all the 2.3. Explicit expression of the CFSC by numerical simulation
parameters involved in the failure criterion of the rock mass. Thus, all
parameters associated with the slope stability must satisfy a certain Eq. (17) is the implicit functional relationship for all parameters as-
functional relationship when the slope is in the critical failure state. In sociated with slope stability, and it is a great challenge to establish the
this section, we focus on establishing this general functional relation- explicit expression of CFSC by theoretical analysis. Thus, in this section, a
ship to describe the critical failure state of any slope. For the classic numerical simulation method is used to achieve this goal. The slope model
definition of the critical state of the slope, a slope in the critical failure used in this numerical simulation is shown in Fig. 1. The slope height is
state indicates that there is an equilibrium state between the total re- assigned to values of 10.0 m, 50.0 m, 100.0 m and 250.0 m. The unit
sistant shear force and the total sliding force on the potential sliding weight is set to 25.0 kN/m3. The slope angle is varied from 10° to 90° at an
surface. Thus, this equilibrium state for any slope could be deduced as interval of 10°. The normal displacements of the left, right and bottom
follows: boundaries of the slope model are all fixed. Only the gravity of the rock

3
Y. Wei, et al.
Fig. 1. Generic geometry of slope model in this study.
mass is considered as external load in the numerical simulation. FLAC3D, a
commercial finite difference program developed by Itasca Consulting
Group, Inc. in the USA is used in this paper. The bulk modulus (K ), the
shear modulus (G ), ci , mb , s and α are necessary input parameters for
numerical simulation by FLAC3D. The bulk modulus and shear modulus
can be directly calculated from the elasticity modulus (E ) and Poisson's
ratio ( ) of the rock mass, as shown by K = E /3(1 2 ), G = E /2(1 + ).
mb , s and can be calculated from mi , GSI and D , as shown in Eq. (2).
Hoek et al. [17] have proposed formulas to assess the rock mass elasticity
modulus based on GSI, D and σci, given by:
(
E (GPa) = 1
D
2 ) 100
ci
·10((GSI 10)/40) ( ci 100 MPa)
E (GPa) = (1 )·10
D ((GSI 10)/40) ( 100 MPa)
2 ci
Thus, we have taken this relationship among the E, GSI, D and σci
into account in this study. However, we have not found any formula
used for assessing the Poisson's ratio of rock mass based on GSI or other
GHB criterion’s parameters. But then, Zheng H. et al. [35] have pro-
posed “ - ” inequality to represent the relationship between friction
angle and Poisson's ratio, given by:
sin 1 2
Friction angle ( ) is not a input parameters in the GHB criterion, but
we could calculate the instantaneous friction angle of each finite dif-
ference element according to Eq.8 and Eq.9. In order to consider the
influence of GHB criterion’s parameters on the Poisson's ratio, we ex-
tract the minor principle stress of each element to calculate its in-
stantaneous friction angle at each computational iteration step, and
then we adjust the Poisson's ratio of each element based on its in-
stantaneous friction angle to make the “ - ” inequality true.
Therefore, we could assume that Poisson's ratio could be acquired by:
(1 sin )
= ·
2 (20)
where is a coefficient greater than 1.0, which is used to guarantee the
“ - ” inequality is true. could be estimated by 2 i /(1 sin i ), where
i and i are the initial Poisson's ratio and initial instantaneous friction
angle. For convenience, the values of for all the finite difference
elements are the same.
In numerical simulation, convergence criterion is a very important
concept, which is a criterion for the termination of numerical calcula-
tion. If the calculation converges, it indicates that the system has
reached a mechanical stable state; otherwise, it indicates that the
system is in a state of collapse. Thus, the non-convergence option is
widely taken as an indicator of slope failure [36]. In FLAC3D, the default
convergence criterion is that the value of R is less than 10−5. The
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
definition of R is given by:
Unbalance _fmax
R=
Typical _i _f (21)
where Unbalance_fmax is the maximum unbalance force of the calculation
system, which is defined as the maximum value of the difference between
external force and internal force of all grid nodes when the external forces
are transferred to each node of the calculation system in each calculation
cycle step; Typical_i_f is the typical internal force, which is defined as the
average of all mesh grid forces in calculation model [19]. The default
convergence criterion of FLAC3D is used in this study.
The procedure of the numerical simulation is as follows:
(18) (1) A series of slope models with different and H values are estab-
lished, and the rock mass contained in each slope model is assigned
to be homogeneous and isotropic.
(2) For each slope model, the unit weigh the rock mass remain the same,
and ci , GSI , mi and D are adjusted to lead the slope to the critical
failure state. In this regard, GSI is varied from 5 to 100 at an interval
of 5.0, mi is varied from 1 to 40 at an interval of 1.0, and D is varied
from 1.0 to 0.05 at an interval of −0.05. These different GSI , mi and
(19) D values form 40 combinations groups. The values of GSI , mi and D in
each group are transformed into values of mb , s and , which are input
into FLAC3D; then, ci is repeatedly adjusted until the slope is in the
critical state. The slope is determined to be in the critical failure state
when the numerical calculation does not converge.
(3) The uniaxial compressive strength of the rock mass cmass is calcu-
lated for each condition according to the output from procedure (2).
Then, mi is taken as the x-coordinate, and is taken as the y-co-
ordinate. The points paired by (mi , ) for each slope angle are
drawn in the mi coordinate system.
(4) According to the multiple nonlinear fitting method, the functional
relationships between mi and under the conditions of different
slope angles would be obtained.
Based on the proposed procedures (1) to (4), the CFSCs for different
slope angles could be acquired, as shown in Fig. 2. All CFSCs exhibit the
same characteristics, i.e., first sharply drops and subsequently slowly
decreases with the increase in mi. When mi has a relatively small value
(mi 13.0) , has an appreciable influence on the slope stability. When
the value of mi is greater than 13.0, λ has only a slight influence on the
slope stability. Through the optimization algorithm, the following
equation is selected to fit discrete points and describe the functional
relationship between mi and λ:
1
= + p4 ·mi
p1 (mi + p2 )2 + p3 (22)
4
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

Fig. 2. Slope critical failure state curves (CFSCs) for different slope angles.

where p1, , p3 and p4 are undetermined coefficients that vary with the thus, in this study, we have only provided eight groups of undetermined
change in slope angle. Note that these four parameters have no definite coefficients of CFSCs’ equation. For other slope angles not contained in
physical meaning and are only undetermined coefficients used for fit- Table 1, the undetermined coefficients could be acquired by linear in-
ting function. The fitting results of Eq. (22) for different slope angles are terpolation method. The general formula is given by:
shown in Table 1. All the relevant coefficients are greater than 0.95 and pi, 2 pi, 1
very close to 1.0; therefore, this function can perfectly represent the pi, = tan 2 tan 1
(tan tan 1) + pi, 1
(i = 1, 2, 3, 4)
relationship between mi and . | 1 | 10° | 2 | 10° 2 1 = 10° (23)
It is hardly to establish the equations of CFSCs for each slope angle,
th
where pi, , pi, 1
and pi, 2
denotes the i undetermined coefficients for

5
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

Table 1 slope is likely to fail, the failure will always occur in the most possible
Coefficients of CFSC for different slope angles. way. Therefore, when the strength of the slope rock mass is weakened,
Slope angle p1 p2 p3 p4 Relevant coefficient it is also along the most possible attenuation path to make the slope
reach the critical state. Obviously, the shortest path between Pt and the
10° 8.1367 0.5185 −6.851 0 0.9623 CFSC could lead the easiest reduction strategy of strength parameters to
20° 2.4946 0.442 1.2127 0.0001 0.9829
make the slope reach the critical state. Namely, the shortest path be-
30° 1.5896 −0.3959 4.6826 0.0002 0.9803
40° 0.8658 −0.4155 4.6472 0.0003 0.9722
tween P t and the CFSC is the maximum possible path for the weakening
50° 0.4106 −0.442 4.393 0.0006 0.9703 of rock mass strength [6,34]. In Fig. 4, L2 is considered to be this
60° 0.1818 −0.4931 3.3338 0.0011 0.9795 shortest path. Thus, the optimal reduction strategy for the NSRM is to
70° 0.0666 −0.6149 2.7934 0.0028 0.9610 reduce t and mit synergistically along the path L2 . In fact, the tracking
80° 0.0259 −1.0376 2.4525 0.0054 0.9585
path L2 is a purely mathematical feature that solves the shortest dis-
tance between point P t and the CFSC under certain limiting conditions.
slope angles = , 1 and 2 , respectively. 1 and 2 are the slope angles Suppose that Dis denotes the distance between point P t and any point
shown in the Table 1. For example, if = 54°, so 1 = 50° and 2 = 60° located along the CFSC, thus, this relationship can be expressed as:
are determined; if = 78°, so 1 = 70° and 2 = 80° are determined. The min(Dis ), (0 < mi 40)
value of pi, 1 and pi, 2 are directly acquired by looking them up in the
( )
2
Table 1. Dis = (mit mi ) 2 + t 1
+ p4 ·mi
p1 (mi + p2 )2 + p3
Fig. 3 shows the CFSCs for β = 15°, 25°, 35°, 45°, 55°, 65° and 75°. As (25)
shown in the Fig. 3, discrete points are obtained based on the proposed
Supposing that mi = makes Dis obtain the minimum value, mir is
mir
procedures (1) to (4), and the solid-line curves are acquired by calcu-
substituted into Eq. (22), and the corresponding ordinate value r is
lating their undetermined coefficients of CFSCs’ equations based on Eq.
obtained. Thus, the ratios of t to r and mit to mir can be given:
(23). The results of p1, p2, p3, p4 and the average relative errors (δ) are
shown in Table 2. The formula of δ is defined as: t
K = r
n i i
1 mit
d s K mi =
= × 100%
n i
d (24)
mir (26)
i=1

where n is the number of sampling on the CFSCs, di and si represent the The ratio of K to K mi is defined as a mating coefficient :
ordinate values of the discrete point and the solid-line curve in the K t mr
Fig. 3, respectively. As shown in the Table 2, we can find that the = = · i
K mi r mt
i (27)
minimum value of δ is 6.9% and the maximum value of δ is 12.8%.
Thus, the linear interpolation method could be used to estimate the p1, is not constant and varies with the slope angle, slope height and
p2, p3 and p4. mechanical parameters of the rock mass. The core objective of the
optimal reduction strategy is to calculate the mating coefficient. To
ensure that the reductions for t and mit are exactly in agreement with
3. SRM based on the slope CFSC
the maximum possible path, the ratio of the reduction factor of t to the
reduction factor of mit at each reduction step should be equal to .
3.1. Reduction strategy for the GHB criterion
In essence, the reduction for t is a reduction for cmass . However,
cmass is not a directly used parameter in the GHB criterion, which is
First, let us give two definitions: the slope to be analyzed with the
expressed by ci , GSI and D , as shown in Eq. (4). Thus, the reduction for
actual rock mass parameters ( cit, mit , GSI t , Dt ) is defined as the ‘target t
is realized through reducing ci , GSI and D . According to Eq. (4),
slope’; and the slope in the critical failure state with the same geometrical
cmass monotonically decreases with decreasing ci and GSI , as well as
configuration as the target slope is defined as the ‘reference slope’, whose
with increasing D . If ci , GSI and D have the same reduction factor, for
rock mass parameters are expressed as ( cir, mir , GSI r , Dr ) . Eq. (17) shows
example, suppose that their reduction factor at the nth step is Rcgd
n
, their
that the combination of ( cir, mir , GSI r , Dr ) that leads to the slope critical
values after adjustment are expressed as:
failure state is not unique for a given slope with a specific slope angle and
height, namely, there are many potential reference slopes. Thus, the es- n
t
ci
=
sence of the NSRM is to provide an optimal reduction strategy to search for ci n
Rcgd

an appropriate reference slope corresponding to the target slope. GSI t

GSI n =
In Fig. 4, the black solid curve represents the CFSC for an arbitrary
n
Rcgd

slope. P t denotes the point of the target slope drawn in the mi co- n
D n = Dt ·Rcgd (28)
ordinate system, where t is obtained from the actual rock mass para-
meters of the target slope based on the equation = cmass / H and Eq. Thus, the reduction factor for t
at the nth step (R ) can be obtained
n

(4). The CFSC divides the coordinate plane into two parts: the stability as:
area (above the CFSC) and the instability area (below the CFSC), which
could be used to rapidly estimate the slope stability according to the
t
ci·exp ( GSI t 100
9 3D t )·{0.5 + 1
6
exp ( GSI t
15 ) exp ( ) 20
3 }
spatial relationship between the point P t and the CFSC. n
R =
There are many paths, such as L1, L2 , L3 , L4 , and L5 , by which P t can n
ci ·exp ( GSI n 100
9 3Dn )·{0.5 + 1
6
exp ( GSI n
15 ) exp ( ) 20
3 } (29)
arrive at the CFSC. Each path represents a reduction strategy for all the
actual rock mass parameters involved in the GHB criterion. From an- The reduction factor for mit at the nth step (Rmni ) can be obtained as:
other point of view, the process from P t to the CFSC can be regarded as n
R
a continual weakening of the rock mass strength and a progressive Rmni =
(30)
failure of the slope until reaching the critical failure state. According to
Pan Jia-zheng's minimum value principle, if a slope can slide along During the whole reduction process, we repeatedly adjust (R n n
Rcgd
many potential sliding surfaces, it will be destroyed along one sliding and Rmi are automatically acquired based on Eq. (29) and Eq. (30) to
n

surface with minimal energy dissipation occurring on the sliding sur- acquire new values of ci , GSI , D and mi ), then, the elastoplastic cal-
face based on minimum energy criterion. In other words, when the culation for the slope is executed by importing these new strength

6
Y. Wei, et al.
Fig. 3. CFSCs for β = 15°, 25°, 35°, 45°, 55°, 65° and 75°.
parameters into the numerical simulation. Once the slope reaches the
critical failure state, the reduction process is terminated. In fact, the
core of strength reduction is to make the slope reach the critical state by
reducing the σcmass and mi. Thus, we have deduced that the reduction
factors of σcmass and mi should satisfy the Eq. (30) at each reduction
step. Obviously, there would be several different reduction factors for
σci, GSI and D, but, the deduced reduction factors for σcmass and mi could
not go against the Eq. (30). For convenience, we assume that σci, GSI
7
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
and D have the same reduction factor, however, their deduced reduc-
tion factors are in accordance with the Eq. (30).
The strength reduction process to simulate the slope critical failure
state can be easily included in the commercial finite difference program
FLAC3D by using FISH, which is a programming language embedded
within FLAC3D, enabling the user to define new variables and functions.
These user-defined variables and functions can extend the usefulness of
FLAC3D. Undoubtedly, once the unit weight, the slope height, the slope
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

Table 2 Introduction (i.e., Hammah’s method and Thomas’s method), the method
Error analysis for the linear interpolation method used for estimating the un- proposed in this study has a higher computational efficiency.
determined coefficients.
Slope angle p1 p2 p3 p4 δ (%) 3.2. Definition of global safety factor

15° 5.3818 0.4811 −2.9137 0.00005 10.80 Rn is usually not equal to Rmni ; thus, which reduction factor (Rn or
25° 2.0606 0.0401 2.8769 0.00015 6.90
Rmni )is suitable to be regarded as the safety factor of the slope is difficult
35° 1.2499 −0.4051 4.6660 0.00025 9.10
45° 0.6581 −0.4276 4.5312 0.00044 7.50 to determine. Given these two reduction factors, many scholars have
55° 0.3105 −0.4644 3.9296 0.00082 7.40 defined one index from the pure mathematical functional relationship
65° 0.1350 −0.5426 3.1143 0.00179 12.70 of the two reduction factors to estimate the slope stability [18,29].
75° 0.0529 −0.7572 2.6786 0.00368 12.80
However, these definitions have no evident physical meaning.
The essence of defining the factor of safety is to compare two different
states of slope (i.e. the initial state and the critical state). Thus, the safety
factor is equal to be the ratio of the status variable of initial state to the
critical state. The status variable should represent the overall situation of
slope. In this section, the safety factor can be defined as:
t
Fgsf = r (31)
where Fgsf is the global stability factor of the slope; is a status variable
representing the overall slope situation; and superscripts t and r denote the
target slope and reference slope, respectively. In this study, the global
sliding resistance force on the critical sliding surface is chosen as a status
variable to represent the overall slope situation.
As shown in Fig. 5, the right slope indicates the reference slope, and
the left slope indicates the target slope. Once the slope transitions from
the initial state to the critical failure state by the NSRM, the stress field
and critical sliding surface of the reference slope can be determined.
The global sliding resistance force of the reference slope can be ac-
quired by integrating the shear strength of each point along the critical
sliding surface. Simultaneously, the location of the critical sliding sur-
Fig. 4. Discussion on reduction path of strength reduction method.
face is translated into the target slope, and the global sliding resistance
force of the target slope can also be obtained by this procedure. The
angle and all the parameters involved in the GHB criterion are determined, ratio between the above mentioned two sliding resistance forces is
the variables and functions associated with Eq. (28) to Eq. (30) can be considered to be the global safety factor of the slope and is given by:
easily defined in FLAC3D. Based on the programming loop control struc-
t
ture, Rcgd
n
is regarded as a loop control variable ranging from the lower t t tm t
mbt 3t 1
( 3) 1+ + st dl
limit to the upper limit. The reduction factor must be greater than but not tdl l ns b t
ci
equal to zero, so the lower limit of the loop control variable should be a Fgsf = l
=
rdl r
litter greater than zero. Thus, we assign it to be 0.1 in this study. The upper
( )
l mbr 3r 1
r r rm r
( 3) 1+ + sr dl
limit of the loop control variable could be theoretically a infinity, it is l ns b r
(32)
ci

possible to set the upper limit at 1000, 10,000 or larger, but a larger upper
limit could be computationally expensive. In this study, we assign the where t, and denote the shear strength, normal stress and minor
t
ns
t
3
upper limit to be 10.0 according to previous trials. So the lower and upper principal stress of each point on the critical sliding surface for the target
limits of the loop control variable are totally defined according to user slope, respectively; r , nsr
and 3r denote the shear strength, normal
needs. The FISH program used for executing the calculation of NSRM is stress and minor principal stress of each point on the critical sliding
provided in the Appendix A. The loop control structure in the Appendix A surface for the reference slope, respectively; t , cit and mbt denote the
clearly shows that there are no iteration procedures for each element at respective parameters involved in the GHB criterion for the target slope;
every reduction step, i.e., strength reduction calculations are simulta- and r , cir and mbr denote the respective parameters involved in the GHB
neously carried out for all the elements of the slope at each reduction step. criterion for the reference slope.
Compared with the second type of reduction method discussed in the Similarly, we could calculate the global safety factor by using FISH in
FLAC3D. Once the slope reaches the critical failure state, its critical sliding

Fig. 5. Definition of global safety factor based on the relationship of global sliding resistance force between the initial state and critical state of slope.

8
Y. Wei, et al.
Fig. 6. Procedures of the proposed strength reduction method in this study.
surface can be determined based on the proposed method by Wang Wei
et al. [31] The displacements and coordinates of the mesh grids are the
input parameters in Wang’s method, and these data can be easily extracted
and used to search for the location of the critical sliding surface. Once the
location of the critical sliding surface is acquired, the global safety factor
can be calculated according to Eq. (32). The procedure for using the NSRM
to analyze the slope stability is shown in Fig. 6.
3.3. Illustrative examples
Next, two examples were selected from the preexisting literature to
compare the method proposed in this paper to other methods and to
verify the validity of the proposed method in slope stability analysis.
The comparative methods include (I) directly reducing the parameters
involved in the GHB criterion (i.e., ci , GSI and mi ); (II) globally low-
ering the envelope of the GHB proposed by Hammah et al. [13]; (III)
utilizing the integral linearization method; and (IV) utilizing the local
linearization method.
9
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
(1) The first illustrative example:
The geometry of the slope and the rock mass parameters are all
selected from Hammah’s literature [13]: slope height H =10.0 m, slope
angle = 45°, unit weight =25.0 kN/m3, initial Poisson’s ratio = 0.3,
ci=30.0 MPa, GSI =5.0, mi=2.0, D=0, mb=0.067, s=2.6E−5, and
=0.619.
According to the proposed method in Fig. 6, the coordinates of this
slope are pt (2.0, 0.1742) , and the CFSC is expressed as:
1
= + 0.0004mi
0.6581(mi 0.4276)2 + 4.5312 (33)
Next, the point leading the shortest distance from to the CFSC
pt
could be obtained, i.e., pr (1.994, 0.1636) . Thus, according to Eq. (27),
the mating coefficient is calculated to be 1.0617. The reduction
factors R cgd and Rmi are adjusted to update the input parameters of the
GHB and execute the elastoplastic calculation for the slope. When R cgd
is equal to 1.16 and Rmi is equal to 1.1985, this slope is in the critical
failure state, representing the reference slope. Based on the
Y. Wei, et al.
Fig. 7. Critical sliding surfaces for two illustrative examples.
displacement field of the reference slope, the critical sliding surface is
acquired via the analytical method proposed by Wang et al. [31]. The
displacement graph of the slope and its corresponding critical sliding
surface are shown in Fig. 7(a). Once the normal stress of each point at
the critical sliding surface are determined for the target and reference
slopes, according to Eq. (7), the corresponding shear strength of each
point for the two states could also be acquired, as shown in Fig. 8. Fi-
nally, based on the data in Fig. 8, the global safety factor Fgsf of this
slope is calculated to be 1.2422 according to Eq. (32).
The global safety factors of the first illustrative example acquired by
five methods are shown in Table 3, and the corresponding critical sliding
surfaces are given in Fig. 9. For the first illustrative example, the direct
reduction method (I) obtains the minimum safety factor (i.e., 1.15), while
the local linearization method (IV) obtains the maximum safety factor (i.e.,
1.42), and the safety factor resulting from the proposed method (V) is very
close to the global safety factor acquired by Hammah’s method (II). In
addition, the integral linearization method leads to the critical sliding
Fig. 8. Shear strength of each point on the same critical sliding surface for the target slope and reference slope (The first illustrative example).
10
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
surface with the largest unstable area, and the locations of the critical
sliding surfaces acquired by the other four methods are very similar.
(2) The second illustrative example:
The slope geometry and rock mass parameters are selected from the
literature [30]: slope height H =32.0 m, slope angle = 75°, unit weight
=25.0 kN/m3, initial Poisson’s ratio = 0.3, ci=40.0 MPa, GSI =45.0,
mi=10.0, D=0.9, mb=0.281, s=2.0E−4, and =0.508.
According to the same procedure used in the first illustrative ex-
ample, the slope is in the critical failure state when R cgd = 1.35and
Rmi = 1.343. The displacement graph at the critical failure state and its
corresponding critical sliding surface are shown in Fig. 7(b), and the
shear strength of each point on the same critical sliding surface for the
target slope and reference slope is shown in Fig. 10. Finally, the global
safety factor is calculated to be 2.323. Fig. 10 shows that there is a
section with nearly zero shear strength, which indicates a tensile failure
Y. Wei, et al.
Table 3
Global safety factors of illustrating examples acquired by five methods.
Examples Direct reduction method (I) Globally lowing envelop (II)
The first 1.15 1.28
The second 1.50 2.18
area. The approximately upright segment of the critical sliding surface
in Fig. 7(b) directly displays this tensile crack.
The global safety factors of the second illustrative example acquired by
the five methods are also shown in Table 3, and the corresponding critical
sliding surfaces are given in Fig. 11. For the second illustrative example,
the minimum and maximum safety factors also result from the direct re-
duction method (I) and the local linearization method (IV), respectively,
and the method proposed in this paper also leads to a result that is close to
Hammah’s result. As shown in Fig. 11, there are distinct approximately
upright segments (i.e., tensile cracks) in the critical sliding surfaces re-
sulting from the direct reduction method (I), Hammah’s method (II) and
the method proposed in this paper (V); however, the critical sliding sur-
faces determined by the integral linearization method (III) and the local
linearization method (IV) gradually bend from the slope without upright
segments, indicating that shear failure occurs along the whole critical
sliding surface. In practice, the slope failure process usually involves top-
pling and then slipping in shear when the value of the slope angle is large;
thus, the critical sliding surface of steep slopes generally consists of a
tensile failure segment and a shear failure segment. From this point of
view, methods I, II and V have obtained much more reasonable results
than methods III and IV. This is probably because the GHB criterion is
transformed into the equivalent MC criterion in methods III and IV, and
the MC criterion, which can only depict the shear failure, has replaced the
GHB criterion for use in elastic-plastic analysis. In contrast, the GHB cri-
terion is directly used in methods I, II, and V, and it can simultaneously
depict the tensile failure and shear failure of the rock mass.
As mentioned above, there are many strength reduction strategies
bringing the actual rock-mass slope to the critical state, and the optimal
reduction path is considered to be the shortest path between Pt and the
CFSC. Next, we take these two illustrative examples as research objects
to compare the safety factors resulted from different reduction paths.
Fig. 12 and Fig. 13 show the safety factors of the first and second il-
lustrative examples resulted from seven different reduction paths, re-
spectively. We can find that the safety factor decreases first and then
increases along with the increase in mi. The minimum safety factor
would be acquired when mi is equal to the value corresponding to the
shortest path between Pt and the CFSC. Thus, it is indicated that the
shortest path between Pt and the CFSC considered as an optimal re-
duction path would produce the minimum safety factor for rock slope.
Compared other reduction paths, it is a conservative reduction strategy
and recommended in engineering practice.
Fig. 9. Critical sliding surfaces of the first illustrative example acquired from five strength reduction methods.
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
Integral linearization method (III) Local linearization method (IV) The proposed method (V)
1.18 1.42 1.242
1.90 3.4 2.323
4. Discussions
In order to further compare the computational results and efficiency of
the proposed method with other four strength reduction methods in Section
3, other more 8 slopes selected from literature are used for the research
objects. Table 4 shows slope data used for comparative analysis [1], and
Table 5 shows the safety factors and computation times for eight slopes
resulted from method I ~ V. In this study, all the numerical simulations were
performed on the personal computer. The model of its CPU is Intel(R) Core
(TM) i7-5960X with the frequency of 3.0 GHz. The operating system in-
stalled in this computer is Windows 7_64, and its internal storage is 32.0 GB.
The software used here for numerical simulations also is FLAC3D, which is a
three-dimensional explicit finite-difference program for engineering me-
chanics computation. The explicit, Lagrangian, calculation scheme and the
mixed- discretization zoning technique used in FLAC3D ensure that plastic
collapse and flow are modeled very accurately. Because no matrices are
formed, large three-dimensional calculations can be made without excessive
memory requirements. FLAC3D offers an ideal analysis tool for solution of
three-dimensional problems in geotechnical engineering [19].
As shown in Table 5, it can be seen that the minimum and maximum
safety factors are obtained from method I and method IV, respectively. The
safety factors resulted from the proposed method (V) are the most prox-
imal to those acquired by Hammah’s method (II), and the relative error of
safety factors between method II and method V is approximately equal to
3.3%. In addition, we can find that the computational efficiency of five
reduction methods from high to low in turn are method III, method I,
method V, method II and method IV. The method III having the highest
computational efficiency is because that MC criterion is directly used in
the numerical calculation of slope stability analysis, which has much less
computational iteration steps than GHB criterion used in numerical si-
mulation. For method IV, the instantaneous cohesion and friction angles of
all the finite difference grid elements should be updated at each reduction
step according to Eqs. (8) and (9), which needs heavy computations and
seriously reduces the calculation efficiency. For the proposed method V, its
computational efficiency is similar to that of method I, that is because GHB
criterion is directly used for numerical simulation in both methods.
However, the computational efficiency of method V is comparatively
higher than that of method II (Hammah’s method). That is because
Hammah’s method needs to update the GHB criterion’s parameters
through nonlinear fitting method to fit the globally reduced shear en-
velope of the GHB criterion, which increases the calculation amounts
11
Y. Wei, et al.
Fig. 10. Shear strength of each point on the same critical sliding surface for the target slope and reference slope (The second illustrative example).
compared with the method V.
5. Conclusions
This paper proposes a NSRM based on the GHB criterion. The pro-
posed method involves two aspects: (1) specifying the strength reduc-
tion path of the parameters contained in the GHB criterion, and (2)
defining the global safety factor of the slope. The main conclusions are
shown as follows:
(1) Critical failure state curve (CFSC) equation is established to re-
present the relationship among all the parameters associated with
the slope stability, such as slope angle, height, unit weight of rock
mass, strength parameters involved in the GHB criterion (i.e σc, mi,
GSI and D), when the slope is lead to the critical failure state. CFSC
has revealed a basic law of the slope in the critical state, and it is the
basis of the proposed NSRM in this study.
(2) There are many reduction strategies bringing the slope to the cri-
tical failure state, however, the optimal reduction strategy is that
the strength reduction should be in accordance with the maximum
possible path for the weakening of rock mass’s strength. In this
study, the shortest path between pt and the CFSC is considered to be
this optimal reduction path. Compared with other reduction paths,
Fig. 11. Critical sliding surfaces of the second illustrative example acquired from five strength reduction methods.
12
Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240
the reduction path proposed in this study would produce the
minimum safety factor for rock slope. It is a conservative reduction
strategy and recommended in engineering practice.
(3) The essence of defining the factor of safety is to compare two dif-
ferent states of slope (i.e. the initial state and the critical state).
Thus, the safety factor is equal to be the ratio of the status variable
of the initial state to the critical state. The status variable should
represent the overall situation of the slope. In this study, sliding
resistance force is considered as this status variable. Obviously, the
traditionally definitions of the safety factor do not reflect the
comparison of two states of the slope. Thus, the definition of the
factor of safety in this study is distinctly different from the tradi-
tionally common definition.
(4) Through the comprehensive comparative analysis among the pro-
posed method and the pre-existing strength reduction methods, the
results show that the safety factors resulted from the proposed
method are the most proximal to those acquired by the most ac-
curate method available at present (Hammah’s method), and the
relative error of safety factors between them is approximately equal
to 3.3%. In addition, the computational efficiency of the proposed
method is comparatively higher than that of Hammah’s method.
That is because Hammah’s method needs to update the GHB cri-
terion’s parameters through nonlinear fitting method to fit the
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

Fig. 12. The safety factors of the first illustrative example resulted from seven different reduction paths.

Fig. 13. The safety factors of the second illustrative example resulted from seven different reduction paths.

Table 4 Table 5
Summary of slope data used for comparative analysis. Comprehensive comparison among five strength reduction strategies.
Case Rock Type GSI γ (kN/m3) σci (MPa) mi D H (m) β (deg) Case Factor of safety Computation time (s)
I II III IV V I II III IV V
1 Dolomite 47 27 153 9 0.65 184 55
2 Shale 28 26 50 8 0.25 140 34 1 1.84 2.04 1.88 2.27 1.976 5072 6262 4539 7245 5643
3 Schist 44 44 65 17 0.45 220 45 2 1.77 1.96 1.81 2.18 1.898 3859 4764 3453 5513 4293
4 Limestone 58 27 172 9 0.75 135 65 3 1.63 1.82 1.67 2.02 1.755 6064 7487 5427 8663 6747
5 Shale 41 27 29 7 0.45 70 50 4 2.62 2.91 2.68 3.23 2.811 3721 4594 3330 5316 4140
6 Limestone 25 26.5 50 10 0.15 110 45 5 1.45 1.62 1.49 1.80 1.562 1929 2382 1727 2756 2147
7 Schist 39 27 109 18 0.65 270 45 6 1.54 1.72 1.58 1.91 1.659 3032 3743 2713 4331 3373
8 Limestone 48 30 104 7 0.25 170 55 7 1.70 1.89 1.75 2.10 1.830 7442 9188 6660 10,631 8280
8 1.97 2.18 2.01 2.43 2.111 4686 5785 4193 6694 5213

globally reduced shear envelope of the GHB criterion, which in-

creases the calculation amounts compared with the proposed Foundation for Young Scientists of China (No. 51709176), National
method. Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 51979170), Key Project of
Hebei Natural Science Foundation (NO. F2019210243) and Hebei
Acknowledgement Province Science Foundation for Yong Scientists (NO. E2018210046).

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of National Science

13
Y. Wei, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 117 (2020) 103240

Appendix A

14
Y. Wei, et al.
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