TECHNICAL NOTES

lity chalo er pre e com the cr ure su stabili “loca ed by s; Sub lowski 2006. It has been well documented that the failure of estimate to a critical height of the slope, the lower-bound estimate ij written here including the submergence and the pore-water effects last two terms. must be submitted for individual papers. The manuscript for this technical note was submitted for review and possible publication on July 1, 2007; approved on April 28, 2008. This technical note is part of the Journal ofWater pressure on the submerged part of boundary S and pore-water pressure in the failure mechanism volume V is denoted by Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Vol. 135, No. 3, March 1, 2009. ©ASCE, ISSN 1090-0241/2009/3-444–448/$25.00.slopes built of dry granular soils, such as sand, occurs in regions characterized by large areas, but of relatively shallow depth, with the failure surface approaching the slope face. Such slides are often considered maintenance problems rather than failures. Par-tially submerged slopes, however, behave differently, and the mechanism of failure is not necessarily shallow. During shearing, the soil density decreases because of the dilatancy volumetric strain that is manifested in the increase in the void ratio of the soil. If water is present in the voids of a free draining soil, then the pore-water pressure does work on the dilation “expansion” of the skeleton. This work has an adverse effect on stability, and may be a chief factor leading to landslides in submerged slopes. The premise upon which the limit analysis is based will be of a material property needed to avoid failure, etc. In this techni-cal note, this theorem will be used to examine the influence of partial submergence on the stability of slopes. The kinematic theorem of limit analysis states that in any ki-nematically admissible mechanism, the rate of internal work dur-ing failure is not less than the work rate of true external loads. This can be mathematically expressed a