Investigation of the role of crown crack in cohesive soil slope and its effect on slope stability based on the extended finite element method

Tensile cracks in soil slopes, especially developing at the crown, have been increasingly recognized as signal of slope metastability. In this paper, role crown natural slopes was investigated and its effect on stability studied. A numerical modeling simulation tensile behavior soil, based Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM), used. test applied to validate use XFEM before simulation. Slope failure simulated by using Strength Reduction Method, which determines potential slip surface slope. The results indicate forming crack when plastic zone starts penetrating. Therefore, it is reasonable consider sensitivity analysis shows cracking if are position tension zone. stress variation analysis, from deformation, reveals that a state compressive stress. When penetrating, upper part generates zone, but extent restricted failure. This suggests why difficult form stretch deep implementation can be used for assessing strength forecasting time related disaster.