Research Information System
Turkish Journal of Civil Engineering, vol.36, no.6, pp.97-121, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus, TRDizin)
This article aims to investigate the reliability of slopes opened in weak rocks and to provide insight into the design of rock slopes. For this purpose, a cut slope opened in the Trakya Formation on a highway route was examined with deterministic and reliability analyses. Based on the engineering geology and rock mechanics data obtained within the scope of the project, assuming that the probable slip of the highway slope examined would develop in the form of a wedge, deterministic stability analyses were performed using the Hoek-Brown and Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria and Janbu and Generalized Limit Equilibrium Method for different disturbance conditions. In the reliability analyses, stability analyses were performed with the First Order Reliability Method, First Order Second Moment Method, and Monte Carlo Simulation for the probable slip wedge considered. The probability and reliability functions used in these analyses, which were performed using an algorithm developed in Python, were obtained from the open-source OpenTURNS library. For the reliability assessment of the considered rock slope, shear strength parameters, crack water depth ratio, and horizontal earthquake acceleration were considered as stochastic variables. Probabilistic properties of shear strength parameters were obtained based on field and laboratory data of the Trakya Formation. Deterministic analyses have demonstrated that rock mass properties and calculation approaches have a significant impact on slope stability. Probabilistic stability analyses provided the necessary results for design and evaluation purposes, such as failure probability or reliability index.