An Analytical Investigation of the Topographic Amplification Effects of Slopes under Seismic Loads

In this paper, an analytical approach is proposed to investigate the topographic amplification effects of slopes under seismic loads. The method of region decomposition and matching was adopted to decompose the whole research region into two subregions. Wave function series solutions that satisfied the boundary conditions of stress and displacement of the subregion under the excitation of plane SH waves were constructed. Wave function analytical solutions for slope models under the excitation of plane SH waves were derived. The appropriate number of truncated terms were determined by convergence tests to ensure the accuracy and validity of the wavefield displacement function. The analytical solutions obtained from the proposed method agreed with the numerical solutions. In addition, based on the proposed method, the effects of slope angle, slope height, dimensionless frequency, and the incidence angle of seismic waves on the peak displacement amplification factor were quantitatively studied.