SOIL THICKNESS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION INFLUENCE ON FACTOR OF SAFETY EQUATION

Abstract

Mass movements occurrences are well studied, however there are still possible improvements regarding their factor of safety simulation. This paper focus on the influence of spatialized pedological data and geotechnical data, two of the major limitations for this type of modeling. Numerous mass movements were triggered by an extreme precipitation event in southern Brazil, when the rainwaters reached 300mm in just 24 hours. A local watershed was chosen for field campaigns to supply a safety factor model and show the direct influence of field data on the result efficiency. For this, four different scenarios were created using combination of field data and spatialized soil thickness throughout the watershed area. The results showed an improve of 12% on the simulation efficiency when compared to a homogeneus soil thickness and average geotechnical values scenario, showing the importance of field studies for factor of safety simulations.