ABSTRACT
Natural soil slopes have been caused to failure by water-level fluctuation. The structure of natural soil has a significant effect on the failure behavior of the slope. Therefore, centrifuge model tests were conducted to investigate the deformation and failure of structured soil slope under water-level fluctuation. The artificially structured soil is produced by adding cement into the silty clay and its strength behavior is determined by direct shear tests. The centrifuge model test results show that water-level fluctuation induces a shear failure in the structured soil slope with two deep slip surfaces that develops from the top to the bottom. The failure mechanism is revealed via the deformation localization analysis based on the measurement of full-field displacement of the slope. The water-level fluctuation is discovered to induce significant deformation localization and the localization develops into a local failure there.
