Estimation of lateral force acting on piles to stabilize landslides

The lateral force on stabilizing piles due to the movement of the landslide has been studied by many researchers. One of the most widely used methods was proposed by Ito and Matsui in 1975 based on the plastic deformation theory. This paper aims to extend the approach of Ito and Matsui by considering the soil arching effects along the height of the sliding layer between two neighboring piles. The analysis is carried out in two stages. First stage involves the plastic deformation of soil adjacent to piles. In this stage, considering the arching effects along the height of the sliding layer, a typical cross section of the soil is employed to analyze the soil stress in the rear of piles. In the second stage, the plastic deformation theory proposed by Ito and Matsui is adopted to analyze the squeezing effects between two neighboring piles. Moreover, the parametric analysis is performed to investigate the susceptibility of the governing factors, which include the geometric and mechanical parameters. The results show that both the geometric and mechanical parameters impart the significant influence on the lateral force. Finally, both the numerical simulation results and the field experiment data from the literatures are introduced to validate the proposed approach. The comparison charts illustrate that the predictions by the proposed approach are consistent with the experimental results.