Effect of slip width on the permanent displacement of earth slopes

Newmark sliding block method is commonly used for estimating earthquake-induced permanent displacement of earth slopes and embankments. Since this method is a simplified dynamic analysis procedure with acceptable accuracy, it has been received considerable attention among the geotechnical practitioners. However, it has some shortcomings such as neglecting system response and sliding mass rotation. Hence, researchers have proposed modified procedure to enhance the realistic features of this method. The effect of sliding mass rotation, which sets the block in a gentler condition, was previously considered by continuous increment of yield acceleration. Since the sliding mass is three dimensional in reality, smaller permanent displacement is expected when the width of block is accounted for. In this paper, width of the rotating-sliding mass is taken into account in the coupled and decoupled solution of block sliding equations. The results show that the width of the slip zone is effective on the resulting displacements. With a constant slip length, whatever slip width is reduced, yield acceleration increases and consequently difference between the modified decoupled (or modified coupled) and decoupled (or coupled) increases.