Evaluation of seismic slope displacement techniques in term of engineering criteria and financial restrictions

Abstract

Whether a slope is naturally occurring or constructed, its stability is a critical situation. During the designing part of a construction, engineers can use a variety of tools in order to dimension slope stability and predict seismic displacement. Some of the available methods are pseudo-static, Newmark and numerical analysis with finite elements. The main part of the study is the evaluation of those slope displacement methods according to engineering criteria in purpose of reaching the most profitable and reliable technology. One of the main advantages of choosing the better technique is the prediction of seismic displacements in the most accurate way, especially when a slope contains oil and gas pipelines. The fewer slope displacement incidents the best energy saving results. Meaning that we can save fuels by avoiding destructive situations. Analytical hierarchy process can provide such an evaluation after applying engineering criteria for the aforementioned techniques. The important contribution of this study to the world of knowledge is the ranking of those seismic displacement methods engineering terms, since it is the first time that is applied in such way. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.