THE CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS APPLIED TO STABILITY OF SLOPES

This work presents a method for the determination of the safety factor of a slope based on the theory of the calculus of variations. The method allows for the determination of the critical sliding line (the one giving the minimum safety factor) without the necessity of guessing about its shape, which leads to a considerable economy of time and effort. Furthermore it gives the actual safety factor of the slope and consequently a more complete knowledge of the safety of the slope is obtained. /TRRL/