Determination of Critical Failure Surface of Slopes Using Particle Swarm Optimization Technique Considering Seepage and Seismic Loading

Searching for critical failure surface (CFS) with minimum factor of safety (FOS) of any slope require application of optimization. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) based MATLAB code is developed to search for CFS and associated minimum FOS of slopes by minimizing the objective function. The FOS against slope failure is determined by Bishop's method based on limit equilibrium technique, which also serves as the objective function. With this goal, another computer code is developed in MATLAB to solve non-linear nature of equation of FOS. The effectiveness of developed code is investigated through study of different parameters such as swarm size, iteration count and slice numbers etc. The applicability of PSO is evaluated for homogeneous and layered slopes considering the effect of seepage and seismic loading.