Simplified risk analysis chart to prevent slope failure of highway embankment on soft Bangkok clays

A. Sawatparnich & J. Sunitsakul

Bureau of Road Research and Development, Department of Highways, Ministry of Transport, Thailand

ABSTRACT: The soft Bangkok clay has been well known for high water content, low shear strength, high compressibility, and high sensitivity to geotechnical engineers for several decades. Due to high compressibility of the Soft Bangkok clay, the Prefabricated Vertical Drain (PVD) with preload embankment is introduced to accelerate the primary consolidation settlement during the construction of the new Bangkok-Chonburi highway. During preloading, embankment failures and surface cracks occurred on several sections. To investigate the slope failures, the deterministic and probabilistic approaches are performed to determine the overall factor of safety and their associated probability of failure (Pf ). It is found that the overall factor of safety which is normally used to check the stability of the slopes may not be the only key parameter for slope stability analysis especially where wide range of estimated engineering properties is found. Based on reliability analysis, the so-called risk analysis chart for slope stability analysis is proposed to prevent potential slope failure of embankment on soft Bangkok clays. The use of the proposed risk analysis chart is also presented.

INTRODUCTION

The soft Bangkok clay has been well known for high water content, low shear strength, and high compressibility, to geotechnical engineers for several decades. For constructing highway embankment on the soft Bangkok clay, the main geotechnical concerns are excess settlement and potential stability failure. Thus, Department of Highways (DOH), Thailand, applies several soil improvement techniques, deep mixing cement column and preload with and without vertical drain, in order to increase their highway serviceability and lower their maintenance costs. Tourist attractions, seaports, and industrial estates are located in the east of Thailand. With the second international airport as part of national logistics, the demand for highways is increased dramatically in the area. Thus, Department of Highway (DOH), Thailand, proposed the construction of the new BangkokChonburi highway to connect the Bangkok and eastern part of Thailand and to alleviate the traffic congestion in the existing Bangna-Bangpakong highway. The new Bangkok-Chonburi highway is fully-controlled access with flyovers at intersections. Almost entire highway route is found to be sitting on the well-known soft Bangkok clay. The soft Bangkok clay layer along highway route is about 8 to 15 meters in thickness. Severe settlement of the highway embankment is anticipated if it is constructed on the unimproved Bangkok clay; thus,

the Prefabricated Vertical Drain (PVD) technique with preload embankment was introduced to accelerate the primary consolidation settlement. Since their low shear strengths, stage of construction of the preload embankment with preload time is proposed for three loading stages. During the first and second loading preload stages, there is no slide occurring. However, during the third preload stage, stability failures of preload embankments occur on some sections as shown in Figure 1. On this study, an application of reliability analyses is introduced in order to be used as the pilot study of

Figure 1. Stability failures of the preload embankment during the construction of the new Bangkok-Chonburi highway (courtesy to Apimeteetamrong).

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the reliability analysis for future highway construction projects in Department of Highways, Thailand.

0 0

Undrained Shear Strength (tsm) 2 4 6 8 10

SITE CONDITIONS AND IN-SITU TESTS

Depth (m)

5 10 15 20 25

Soil profile along the new Bangkok-Chonburi highway alignment can be classified to four layers as follows: weathered crust, soft clay, medium stiff clay, and stiff clay, respectively. Summary of their basic properties soil properties is shown in Table 1. In addition, Atterberg limit results are plotted in Casagrandes soil classification chart; moreover, the Bangkok clay is classified as CL or CH as shown in Figure 2. The Vane Shear Test (VST) is considered to be the most reliable tool to estimate undrained shear strength (Su ) throughout the world. To perform the vane shear test, a vane is pushed directly into soil layer and rotated until the soil fails. The torque required to fail the soil along the vertical and horizontal edges of the vane is a relatively direct measurement of the shear strength. Since vane shear time loading is, a correction factor is required to evaluate the undrained shear strength. Bjerrum (1974) evaluated the undrained shear strength
Table 1. Basic engineering soil properties of the soil layers (after Lin, 1999). Depth (m) 0 to 1 1 to 16 16 to 20 20 to 22 Unit weight (kg/cm3 ) 1.6 to 1.8 1.4 to 1.5 1.6 to 1.8 1.8 to 2.0 Water content (%) 40 to 60 70 to 160 40 to 60

Before PVD During PVD

Figure 3. Undrained shear strength of the soft Bangkok clay before and during PVD (after Lin, 1999 and Apimeteetamrong et al., 2007).

from case histories of embankment failures and proposed the correction factor versus plasticity index as shown in Equation 1 (as sited by Das, 2002). As part of another study in Road Research and Development Center, vane shear tests during preloading were performed. Thus, the undrained shear strength by vane shear tests before and during PVD is shown in Figure 3. = 1.7 0.54 log(PI) (1)

Soil layer Weathered crust Soft clay Medium stiff clay Stiff clay

PRELOADED EMBANKMENT CONSTRUCTION

120

Plastic Index (%) .

100 80 60 40 20 0 0

BKK Clay PI = 0.74LL - 10.75 R2 = 0.93

U-Line
A-Line

Due to low undrained shear strength and high water content of the soft Bangkok clay beneath, the preload embankment is constructed into three steps as follows; fifty centimeter working platform sand blanket; two layers of four to six layers of the compacted fill material. Total proposed preload time is one year; however, most of the actual preload time is over one year (Lin 1999). In addition, engineering property specifications of the preload materials is indicated in Table 2. Further information on the backfill materials are reported elsewhere in the final construction report by Lin (1999). 4 EMBANKMENT FAILURES

25

50 75 100 125 Liquid Limit (%)

150

Figure 2. Atterberg limit test results of the soft Bangkok clay in soil classification chart (after Lin, 1999).

All embankment sections performed well during the first and second preload stages without any slide or surface crack (Lin, 1999). However, during the third preload stage, stability failures and surface cracks

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Table 2. Engineering properties of the preloading materials (After Lin, 1999). Material type Drainage Material Gradation Plasticity CBR (%)

Depth (m) 0 1.5 7.0

Fill Material Clay 1 Clay 2 Clay 3

100% finer than 9.5 mm Nonplastic; and less than 6% finer free from than 0.075 mm clay lumps Fill Material Max Particle Nonplastic; 10 size of 3/8 inch free from clay lumps

12. Clay 4

Figure 4. Uncertainty in soil property estimates (after Kulhawy, 1992).

occur in several sections of embankments occurs. Lin (1999) concluded that most of the embankments failures and surface cracks occurred where the soft Bangkok clay with high water content and very thick clay layer. In some sections, stability failure occurs where canal and shrimp farms existing beside the right of way (as shown in Figure 1).

STABILITY ANALYSIS

One of the design criteria of highway embankment design on soft clay is to evaluate the stability of the highway embankment. For highway embankment construction of soft clay, the critical stage for the stability failure is at the end of the embankment construction. On this study, stability of the preload embankment is followed the limit equilibrium method together with the Bishops simplified method. The commercial computer program named SLOPE/W is used to perform stability analyses. The undrained shear strength of the Bangkok clay before and after preloading is evaluated by the vane shear test and the SHANSEP method by Ladd and Foott (1974) as Equation 2, respectively; where OCR is overconsolidation ratio; is material constant. Since the Bangkok clay along the constructed highway before preloading is slightly overconsolidated, the Bangkok clay beneath the preload embankment should be normally consolidated during preloading. Terzaghi et al. (1996) indicates that the relationship between the mobilized strength ratios for the stability analysis of the embankment is as indicated in Equation 3. SU VO =
OC

SU VO

OCR
NC

(2) (3)

SU (mob) = 0.22VO 6 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS

Geotechnical variability is complex and results from various sources of uncertainties as also mentioned by

Terzaghi (Goodman, 1998) Unfortunately, soils are made by nature and not by man, and the products of nature are always complex. . . Natural soil is never uniform. Its properties change from point to point while our knowledge of its properties are limited to those few spots at which the samples have been collected. In soil mechanics the accuracy of computed results never exceeds that of a crude estimate, and the principal function of theory consists in teaching us what and how to observe in the field. The three main sources of uncertainty are: (a) inherent variability, (b) measurement errors, and (c) transformation uncertainties. The first source can be attributed to the natural geologic processes that are involved in soil formation. The second source is attributed to equipment, procedural/operator, and random testing effects. The third source is introduced when field or laboratory measurements are transformed into design soil properties using empirical or other correlation models. The relative contribution of these sources to the overall uncertainty in the design soil property clearly depends on the site condition, degree of equipment and procedure control, and precision of the correlation model. Reliability analysis is a method that introduces uncertainties described by probabilities and probability distributions into calculations of engineering performance. In geotechnical applications, reliability analyses typically assign probabilities or probability distributions to soil or rock engineering properties and propagate these probabilities through calculation models to obtain probabilities or probability distributions of engineering performance. On this study, the reliability analysis is performed thru the Monte Carlo simulation incorporated in the SLOPE/W. The number of repetitions for each simulation is trialed till the uniformly outcome reached. The analyses yield the outcome in term of the probability of failure of the slope failure. Furthermore, the reliability index can be related to the probability of failure as shown in table 3 (USACE, 1997). Engineering properties with standard deviations of the Bangkok clay used in stability analyses are summarized in Table 4. The mean value of total unit weight along construction site is found in the range

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Table 3. Relationship between reliability index and probability of failure (USACE, 1997). Reliability index () 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.25 2.50 2.75 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 Probability of failure (pf = ()) 0.159 0.106 0.0668 0.0401 0.0228 0.0122 0.00621 0.00298 0.00135 0.000232 0.0000317 0.0000034 0.0000003 Expected performance level Hazardous Unsatisfactory Poor Below average Above average Good High

Table 5. Case number 1 2 3 4 5 6

Information of the case histories. Counter weight embankment Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Fill height (m) 3.0 3.0 4.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 Service road No No No Yes No Yes Pond or canal besides No No No No Yes Yes

Depth (m) 0 1.5 7.0

Fill Material Clay 1 Clay 2 Clay 3

Table 4. Statistical Engineering properties of soils, before preloading, used in stability analysis. Soil type Fill Material Clay 1 Clay 2 Clay 3 Clay 4 Fill Material Clay 1 Clay 2 Clay 3 Clay 4 Soil Parameter Unit Weight Unit Weight Unit Weight Unit Weight Unit Weight Friction Angle Shear Strength Shear Strength Shear Strength Shear Strength Mean Value 2000 1.50 1.34 1.48 1.60 35 1.50 0.85 1.14 1.95 COV (%) 1.5 1.5 4.5 5.5 30 15 15 31 Unit kg/m3 kg/m3 kg/m3 kg/m3 kg/m3 degree kg/m2 kg/m2 kg/m2 kg/m2

12 Clay 4

Figure 5. Reliability analysis of slope stability of highway embankment sitting on soft Bangkok clays of the case history number 3.

Table 6. Case number 1 2 3 4 5 6

Stability and reliability analysis results. FMLV 1.65 1.28 1.09 1.01 1.27 1.03 4.18 1.17 0.83 0.02 2.17 0.28 F 0.156 0.157 0.113 0.121 0.127 0.103 Pf (%) 0.00142 3.8 20.2 49.3 1.5 39.0 FS (Min) 0.85 0.57 0.55 0.49 0.77 0.53 FS (Max) 2.38 1.99 1.57 1.55 1.87 1.48

of 1.34 to 1.60 kg/m3 with COV in the range of 1.5 to 5.5. The COV of unit weight presented published in USACE (1999) is in the range of 3 to 8. The mean value of undrained shear strength by field vane shear tests (Su,VST ) at the construction site is found in the range of 0.85 to 1.95 kPa with COV in the range of 14 to 35. The COV of Su,VST presented by Phoon et al. (1995) is in the range of 15 to 50.

STABILITY ANALYSIS RESULTS

The stability analyses will be performed following the case histories indicated in Table 5. Example of the critical surface from stability analysis is provided in Figure 5. Moreover, results of the reliability analyses of the highway embankment for the new BangkokChonburi construction are presented in Table 6.

From Table 6, stability analysis with the application of the reliability analysis yields results coincided with case histories notified in Lin (1999). Stability failure occurred where the thick soft Bangkok clay existed as well as canal and shrimp farms existing beside the right of way. It is shown that some values of factor of safety are less than 1 in which led to the failures of slope in some stations along the highway construction. The distribution of the factor of safety for the case number 6 is shown in Figure 6. For case number 1, the probability of failure (Pf ) of the highway construction is 0.0000142 (with associated reliability index of 4.18). Based on Table 3, it is implied that the expected performance level of the highway construction site is Good due to the uncertainty of the estimated soil properties (as shown in Table 4).

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1
Probability of Failure (Pf).

10 8

COV = 10% COV = 20% COV = 30% COV = 40%

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 Factor of Safety 1.4
Reliability Index ( )

6 4 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Embankment Height (m)

Figure 6. Distribution of Factor of Safety (F.S.) for case history number 6.

It is demonstrated herein that the reliability analysis for slope stability of highway embankment is essential to be preformed especially for highway embankment sitting on soft Bangkok clays.

Figure 7. Risk analysis chart to prevent embankment slope failure: New Bangkok-Chonburi highway project.

50 45
Probability of Failure (%)
COV = 10% COV = 20% COV = 30% COV = 40%

SIMPLIFIED RISK ANALYSIS CHART TO PREVENT EMBANKMENT SLOPE FAILURE

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0.5

Simplified risk analysis chart to prevent embankment slope failure presented herein is adopted from the philosophy of risk analysis chart to prevent damage of building-foundation systems caused by adjacent tunneling in soils presented by Sawatparnich (2003). Since the failure surface of the highway embankment is in the soft Bangkok clay layer, input soft Bangkok layer is simplified to one layer with the undrained shear strength of 0.8 ton/m2 and the unit weight of embankment of 2 t/m3 . The risk analysis chart to prevent embankment slope failure is then simply constructed by plotting the reliability indices versus the maximum height of the embankment on the same range of COV of Su in which so-called Su -line. The Su -line introduced herein are COVSu between 10% and 40%. The simplified risk analysis chart to prevent embankment slope failure sitting on Bangkok clays is presented as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. The proposed chart is the practical methodology to take into account of sources of uncertainty associated in geotechnical engineering to prevent potential slope failure as the case. In the design procedure on highway embankment, one can utilize the chart in the selection of maximum height by taking into account on the uncertainty of estimated soil properties in more rational way as follows: 1. Determine the mean value of Su of existing ground along the route of highway construction.

1.5

2.5

Embankment Height (m)

Figure 8. failure. Risk analysis chart to prevent embankment slope

2. Determine the Standard Deviation (S.D.) for from site investigation along the construction route. 3. Calculate COV of Su . 4. Construct the risk analysis chart from probabilistic slope stability analysis (e.g., SLOPE/W, etc) in which Y-axis is either probability of failure or reliability index. X-axis is embankment height. The COV of Su shall be categorized into COVSu = 10%, COVSu = 20%, COVSu = 30%, COVSu = 40%, respectively. 5. Define the target reliability or the allow probability of failure associated with the reliability level describe in Table 3.

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10

Reliability Index ( )

8 6 4 2 0 0.5 1

COV = 10% COV = 20%

6. Draw the horizontal line along the X-axis to their COVSu . 7. Draw the vertical line from their COVSu along Y-axis to determine the critical height on the chart. For example, if COVSu is about 20% and the target reliability index (in which can be selected from Table 3) is 2.5 (corresponded Pf of 0.00621), from the chart in figure 7, the maximum height in which the Pf of the slope failure is not exceed the target probability of failure (Pf ) is 1.45 meters as shown in Figure 9. If CovSu is equal to 10 percent, the critical height shall be 2.15 meters. If the critical embankment height is less than the required embankment height from highway geometric design, berms or ground modification techniques shall be considered for particular section for highway embankment construction. For the case of preloading construction technique, the risk assessment shall be performed such that the stage of construction (each preloading embankment height) will not exceed the critical height at each stage of construction. Comparison between deterministic approach and Risk Analysis Chart to prevent potential slope failure of highway embankment are shown in Table 7. 9 CONCLUSIONS

1.5 2 2.5 Embankment Height (m)

Figure 9. The use of risk analysis chart to determine the maximum height of highway embankment with target reliability of 2.5 with COVSu of 10% and 20%.

Table 7. Comparison between Deterministic Approach and Risk Analysis Chart to Prevent Potential Slope Failure of Highway Embankment. Traditional Risk analysis chart for highway deterministic approach embankment Soil properties are Uncertainty of soil properties adopted as are considered in the prediction deterministic The propagation of quantities uncertainties in the soil (uncertainties are properties into the prediction neglected). of slope stability in considered No statistic explicitly in the highway evaluation embankment design of estimated process soil properties. Embankment height (critical No explicit criteria height) can be adjusted to to assess the need achieve a specified target for ground reliability index for slope modification or stability analysis. If the critical support structure/ height of highway embankment berms to reduce the is less than the required height potential slope failure from geometric design, ground of embankment. modification or additional support structure/berms may be employed to limit potential slope failures along the highway during the construction For the case of preloading construction technique, the risk assessment shall be performed such that the stage of construction (each preloading embankment height) will not exceed the critical height at each stage of construction

In this study, reliability-based methodology can be used as the more rational and consistent approach in stead of the deterministic analysis in the assessment the potential slope failure for highway embankment in Bangkok clays. Slope stability evaluation is based on method of slices with Bishop method in this study. Six Case studies during the construction of New BangkokChonburi Motorway were evaluated with the Monte Carlo simulation method (MCS) in SLOPE/W in order to demonstrate the capabilities of methodology. In addition, the critical slip surface is first determined by deterministic analysis with the mean input values of engineering soil properties in SLOPE/W. Monte Carlo simulation is then performed on the predetermined critical slip surface. The six cases with different variables of geological conditions of preloaded highway embankments on this project were performed. The illustration was shown that the risk analysis chart for assessing slope failure on highway embankment could be represented as the tool for practical engineers to check the potential slope failure of the highway embankment with their designs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to express the profound gratitude to Dr. Pichit Jamnongpipatkul, the director of

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Bureau of Road Research and Development, Department of Highways for his guidance and support throughout the study and Mr. Satipong Apimeteetamrong for providing some valuable background on the stability failure of the preload embankment and engineering soil properties of the Bangkok clay along the constructed highway. Special thanks are extended to Assistant Prof. Dr. Sompote Youwai, Department of Civil Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology, for providing the commercial software SLOPE/W in this study.

REFERENCES
Apimeteetamrong S., Sunitsakul J. & Sawatparnich A. 2007. Engineering Soil Properties of the Soft Bangkok Clay by Piezoncone Tests, Department of Highways, Bangkok. In Thai. Das B.M. 2002. Principles of Geotechnical Engineering, Brooks/Cole, California. Duncan J.M. 2000. Factors of Safety and Reliability in Geotechnical Engineering, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 126(4): 307316. Goodman R. 1998. Karl Terzaghi: The Engineer As Artist, New York, ASCE.

Kulhawy, F.H., 1992. On Evaluation of Statistical Soil Properties. In: Stability and Performance of Slopes & Embankment II, GSP 31, ASCE, New York, 95115. Ladd C.C. & Foott R. 1974. New Design Procedures for Stability of Soft Clays, Journal of Geotechnical Engineering Division, 100(7): 763786. Lin P. 1999. Final Report of Ground Improvement Work for Construction Supervision of Bangkok-Chonburi New Highway Project, Bangkok. Phoon, K.K., Kulhawy, F.H. & Grigoriu, M.D. 1995. Reliability Based Design of Foundations for Transmission Line Structures. Report TR-105000, Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, 380p. Sawatparnich, A. 2003. Deterministic and Reliability-Based Assessment of Existing Building-Foundation Systems Adjacent to Tunneling In Soils, Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, 406p. Terzaghi K., Peck R.B. & Mesri G. 1996. Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 1997. Engineering and Design, Introduction to Probability and Reliability Methods for Use in Geotechnical Engineering, ETL 1110-2547, Department of the Army, Washington D.C. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 1999. Risk-Based Analysis in Geotechnical Engineering for Support of Planning Studies Engineering and Design, ETL 1110-2-556, Department of the Army, Washington D.C.

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