Study on the Stability of Cut Slopes Caused by Rural Housing Construction in Red Bed Areas: A Case Study of Wanyuan City, China

Hailin He, Xiujun Dong (), Simin Du, Hua Guo, Yue Yan and Guohui Chen
Additional contact information
Hailin He: State Key Laboratory of Geo-Hazard Prevention and Geo-Environmental Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Xiujun Dong: State Key Laboratory of Geo-Hazard Prevention and Geo-Environmental Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Simin Du: The 1st Geological Brigade of Sichuan, Chengdu 610072, China
Hua Guo: The 1st Geological Brigade of Sichuan, Chengdu 610072, China
Yue Yan: The 1st Geological Brigade of Sichuan, Chengdu 610072, China
Guohui Chen: The 1st Geological Brigade of Sichuan, Chengdu 610072, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The red beds that are widely distributed in hilly areas in eastern Sichuan Province are inevitable rock and soil masses in engineering construction. In order to obtain a larger building area, engineering slope cutting is quite common in red bed hilly areas. Engineering slope cutting destroys the inherent stability of a slope and causes geological disasters. In order to practice the concept of sustainable development and explore ways to develop and utilize land resources reasonably and reduce the possibility of geological disasters caused by engineering slope cutting, this paper took the slope cutting sites caused by rural housing construction in the red bed area of Wanyuan City as research objects. The internal and external factors affecting the stability of the cut slopes were summarized through a field investigation, and two typical slopes were selected for analysis. Sampling and indoor tests were conducted to obtain the geotechnical parameters. Geo Studio software (2018 R2) was employed to establish numerical models, simulate the stress and strain distributions, and compute stability coefficients under different slope cutting conditions at the same time. Based on field investigations and numerical simulations, the three main failure modes of shallow landslides caused by slope cutting were summarized, and the evolution process of slope landform accelerated by slope cutting activities was deduced. In an engineering application, the functional relationship between the cutting height and the stability coefficient was fitted. It was found that the critical cut height values of soil slope were 6.3 m, 6.2 m, 5.2 m, and 2.6 m at slope of 10°, 20°, 30° and 40°, respectively; the critical cut height values of rock–soil mixed slope were 9.3 m, 6.5 m, 5.9 m, and 2.2 m at slope of 10°, 20°, 30° and 40°, respectively. The research findings can be used to prevent and manage the hazards caused by slope cutting in this study area.

Keywords: slope cutting; numerical simulation; stability coefficient; red bed; critical value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/3/1344/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/3/1344/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:1344-:d:1333844

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().