Discussion of “Stability assessment of slopes with cracks using limit analysis”

The discusser has recently published a paper in Geotechnique titled “Investigation by limit analysis on the stability of slopes with cracks” (Utili 2013) that includes, for the first time (to the discusser’s knowledge), a systematic investigation of the influence of the presence of cracks in uniform slopes for rotational failure mechanisms via the limit analysis upper bound approach. Looking at the discusser’s paper and the paper under discussion (Michalowski 2013), a reader may note that the aim of the two papers is the same, namely, to assess quantitatively the effect of the presence of cracks on the stability of slopes employing the upper bound approach of limit analysis. The discusser’s paper was sent to Geotechnique when the discusser had no knowledge of either the author’s conference paper (Michalowski 2012) or of the paper under discussion published in July 2013. On the other hand, the discusser’s paper was published after the publication of the author’s conference paper (Michalowski 2012). Hence, it can be concluded that the discusser and the author had independently developed an original formulation for the calculation of upper bounds based on rotational failure mechanisms for cracked uniform slopes at similar times.