Summary description

GSLOPE allows geotechnical engineers to carry out limit equilibrium slope stability analysis of existing natural slopes, unreinforced man-made slopes, or slopes with soil reinforcement. The program uses Bishop’s Modified method and Janbu’s Simplified method. GSLOPE allows either method to be applied to circular, composite, and non-circular surfaces.

GSLOPE handles complex geometries, with up to 20 material types, 9 piezometric surfaces, 100 external line loads, and 100 layers of reinforcement. Any consistent system of units can be used, including metric or British units. For pore pressures, Ru parameters and piezometric surfaces can be used alone or in combination. Slopes can be analysed in either direction, and a seismic coefficient is provided for pseudo-static analysis.

Key Benefits

• Works with reinforced or unreinforced slopes
• Continuous visual feedback
• Draw slopes and slip surfaces on screen, or edit coordinates directly
• Modify slip surface and see updated Factor of Safety immediately

Working model / demonstration system

The working model system contains models of both GTILT and GSLOPE for evaluation. You can download it from our downloads page.

GSLOPE features

• For geosynthetic reinforcement, GSLOPE uses soil/reinforcement interaction coefficients in combination with stress conditions at the slip surface to allow for bonding at the ends of the reinforcement. It is also possible to anchor reinforcement at either end. Precise positioning of reinforcement is simplified by a Trim function which adjusts the position of the reinforcement so that it just daylights at the ground surface.
• Soil material surfaces, piezometric surfaces, external forces, and reinforcement layers can be defined by drawing on screen using a mouse. Search grids, limiting tangents, or a common point for all slip surfaces can also be drawn. When a non-circular slip surface is drawn, the computed Factor of Safety is displayed immediately. Of course all the associated coordinates can also be edited directly.
• Material surfaces, piezometric surfaces and specified slip surfaces can be modified using the mouse or cursor keys. In the case of a specified slip surface, the Factor of Safety is updated as the shape of the surface changes.
• A special construction line allows for materials to be excavated or filled. This is especially useful in highway design or open-pit mining.
• During searches, every slip surface is drawn on the screen so that the user can see which surface is being analyzed.
• Contours of factor of safety can be shown on the screen and updated as the analysis progresses.

This image shows an analysis carried out for the design of a geogrid-reinforced slope built to support a road on a steep hillside in British Columbia.

Click on image to view larger version (in new window).