New method for determining the seismic safety factor of a rock slope

The safety factor for a rock slope experiencing seismic activity is a function that changes with time. Assessments of the potential instability of a rock slope under seismic stress have been based on a time history of a rock slope's safety factor. This is a difficult engineering problem that remains unresolved. Based on the explicit finite element method, a new method of calculating the dynamic safety factor was proposed. To enhance reliability theory, a new concept, a dynamic stability evaluation index, more accurately called a dynamic safety factor of reliability, was proposed, and a method for calculating it was developed. The proposed dynamic safety factor of reliability of rock slope equals to the difference that the mean value of time history of dynamic safety factor of rock slope subtracts the product of standard error of time history of safety factor and risk level accepted by engineering. This compactly integrates stability evaluation of slope with an evaluation of acceptable levels of risk. The proposed method was used to calculate the safety factor for a rock slope, and the result was compared to that derived using the pseudo-static method. The comparison indicates that the proposed method is reliable, and can be used directly in engineering.