Investigation of the effect of diameter, distance and angle of micropiles on the stability of slopes under Steady State Seepage

In urban areas, based on the space constraints, one of the most important issues in the stabilization of slopes is to choose a suitable method for the design of the slope by considering technical and executive problems. Despite the proper design and execution of slopes, a variety of the natural and the artificial factors in a particular period of time may greatly affect their stability. In this study, the investigate the effect of microclimates on the stability of gables under the effect of steady state seepage, seepage analysis was performed using Seep / W software and finite element method, assuming unsaturated saturation flow and in steady state flow. Also, using Slope / W software, slope stability in different conditions including distance, diameter and angle of micropile has been investigated and the sensitivity of the results for permeability and soil resistance parameter has been investigated. The innovation of the present study is using the special parts which eliminates the common assumptions of the limit equilibrium method. Therefore, it is expected that this method will has less error in determining the reliability coefficient. According to the results, it was observed that seepage in the slope, diameter and distances of small piles have a great effect on the stability of the slope, which can be varied according to different conditions. As the distance between the micropiles increases, the slope reliability coefficient with different micropiles diameters becomes closer to the slope reliability coefficient without micropiles and somehow converges to this reliability coefficient.