Material Models in

Slide2 and Slide3

Module 4
Outline

1. Isotropic Material Models

2. Anisotropic Material Models
3. Block Model
4. Weak Layers
Material Strength Models in Slide2 & Slide3

• Mohr-Coulomb • Barton-Bandis In both programs

• Undrained (Phi=0) • Power Curve Slide2 only

• No Strength (ie. water)

• Hyperbolic Slide3 only

• Infinite Strength
• Discrete Function
• Shear/Normal Function
• Drained-Undrained
• C/Phi Function
• Anisotropic Function • Anisotropic Linear
• Anisotropic Strength • Generalized Anisotropic
• Hoek-Brown • Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear
• Generalized Hoek-Brown • SHANSEP
• Vertical Stress Ratio • Block Model
Isotropic Material Models
Isotropic Material Strength Models

• Mohr-Coulomb • Barton-Bandis
• Undrained (Phi=0) • Power Curve
• No Strength (ie. water)
• Hyperbolic
• Infinite Strength
• Discrete Function
• Shear/Normal Function
• Drained-Undrained
• C/Phi Function
• Anisotropic Function • Anisotropic Linear
• Anisotropic Strength • Generalized Anisotropic
• Hoek-Brown • Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear
• Generalized Hoek-Brown • SHANSEP
• Vertical Stress Ratio • Block Model
Mohr-Coulomb

• Most common way to

model soil shear strength
• Can be used for either total or effective stress conditions
Mohr-Coulomb

Linear function in 𝜏 𝜎𝑛 plane

Undrained (Phi = 0)

• The friction angle is automatically set to

zero
• Shear strength is defined only by the
cohesion of the material
• Three different cohesion types:
• Constant
• Function of depth, where depth is measured
from the top of the material layer to the
center of a slice base
• Function of depth, where depth is measured
from a user-specified datum (y-coordinate)
to the center of a slice base
Infinite Strength

An Infinite Strength material can be used for two different purposes:

• Slip surface exclusion zone
Can be used to model concrete retaining wall or
heavily reinforced soil regions

• Slip surface sliding boundary

Can be used to model sliding along bedrock, for example, when weaker materials
lie above bedrock and failure through the bedrock is not expected

Strength and Water parameters are disabled

Shear/Normal Function

• Allows you to define an arbitrary shear / normal function, to define a non-

linear Mohr-Coulomb strength envelope for a material
• As you enter the points in a table, a shear-normal graph is populated so you
can visualize the strength envelope
• The tabular values could be the results of Direct Shear Tests with different
Vertical / Normal stresses
• Shear / Normal functions can be exported or imported
Shear/Normal Function

Tabular function in 𝜏 𝜎𝑛 plane

Shear/Normal Function

Tabular function in 𝜏 𝜎𝑛 plane

C/Phi Function

• Same idea
• Define cohesion and friction
angle as a function of effective
normal stress
Generalized Hoek-Brown

Most common way to model rock mass

shear strength
• GSI is the Geological Strength Index
• mi is a material constant for the intact
rock
• D is a "disturbance factor" which
depends upon the degree of
disturbance to which the rock mass has
been subjected by blast damage and
stress relaxation.
• D varies from 0 for undisturbed in situ
rock masses to 1 for very disturbed rock
masses.
Generalized Hoek-Brown

Nonlinear function in 𝜏 𝜎𝑛 plane

Generalized Hoek-Brown
Generalized Hoek-Brown
Generalized Hoek-Brown
Generalized Hoek-Brown by depth (Slide2)
New: Generalized Hoek-Brown Damage Regions (Slide2)
Generalized Hoek-Brown by depth

Note: Number of Slices in

Project Settings->Methods

D=1 at all locations D=1 at surface, reducing by

distance from ground surface
Vertical Stress Ratio

The shear strength at the base of each slice is determined by multiplying the effective
vertical (overburden) stress by a constant K for the material

The effective vertical stress is computed from the total weight of each slice, and the
pore pressure acting at the center of the base of each slice.

The "vertical stress ratio" K is simply a constant, equal to the ratio of the shear strength
to the vertical stress. (e.g. if K = 0.3, then the shear strength will be 30 % of the
effective vertical stress.)
Barton-Bandis

Can be used to model the shear strength of a joint

Where:
is the residual friction angle of the failure surface
JRC is the joint roughness coefficient
JCS is the joint wall compressive strength
Power Curve

• Waviness is a parameter that can be included

in calculations of the shear strength of a joint
or failure plane.
• a, b, c are parameters typically obtained • The waviness angle is equal to the AVERAGE
from a least-squares regression fit of data dip of a failure plane, minus the MINIMUM dip
obtained from small-scale shear tests of the failure plane. A non-zero waviness
• d is the tensile strength angle, will always increase the effective shear
strength of the failure plane.
• is the waviness angle
• If you are NOT modeling the strength of a
joint, then you can simply set the waviness
angle = 0, and this term in the Power Curve
equation will NOT contribute to the shear
strength.
Hyperbolic

The Hyperbolic shear strength

model has been found to
characterize the shear
strength of soil / geo-synthetic
interfaces, and other types of
interfaces, such as:
• a concrete / soil interface
• a geotextile / soil
interface
Discrete Function

• Allows you to specify the shear strength at

discrete locations throughout a material,
and the shear strength at any point within
the material can then be interpolated
• Shear strength may be specified for either
the undrained case (cohesion only),
drained (cohesion and friction angle), or
GHB
• The function is displayed on the model by a
symbol located at each x and y location
defined in the function
Drained-Undrained

• Allows you to define a soil strength

envelope which considers both drained and
undrained Mohr-Coulomb strength
parameters
• Shear strength is defined in terms of
effective stress parameters c’ and phi’, up
to a maximum value of shear strength
defined by the undrained cohesion Cu
• Cohesion can be defined as constant or
varying with depth
Drained-Undrained: Undrained options

Cohesion can be defined as:

• Constant throughout material
• F(Depth) – depth is measured from the top of the material layer to the center of a
slice base
• F(Datum) – depth is measured from a user-specified Datum (y-coordinate)

Maximum undrained soil strength can be specified with the Cutoff option
Drained-Undrained: Drained options

• Cohesion can be defined as:

• Constant
• F(Depth)
• F(Datum)
• F(undrained Cu) – drained cohesion is
defined as a fraction of the undrained Cu

• Cutoff option is not available for Drained

• Drained friction angle does NOT vary with
depth
SHANSEP Strength Model

• Stress History and Normalized Soil

Engineering Properties
• Used for modeling undrained shear
strength of certain clay soils (Ladd
and Foote, 1974)
SHANSEP Strength Model

Stress History Type

Can be based on
• Overconsolidation Ratio
• Preconsolidation Ratio

The following options are available:

• Constant – a constant value of OCR
or Pc is defined for the material
• By depth from upper material boundary
Tabular values of Depth and OCR or
Pc.
• By elevation (y-coordinate)
Tabular values of Elevation and OPC or
Pc
SHANSEP Strength Model

Material Dependent Vertical Stress

• By default, the weight of all material above a given point will contribute to the
vertical effective stress at that point.
• It can include or exclude some materials from contributing to the vertical
effective stress.
• This is useful for excluding the weight of an added embankment material from the
vertical effective stress calculation, or for simulating the staged addition of
layered embankments
SHANSEP Strength Model

Staged Embankment on Clay

• An embankment is constructed in two lifts or layers, on a clay foundation.
• The stability of the embankment is calculated immediately after construction of the
second/top lift.
• Excess pore pressure increases in the clay between end of construction of the first
lift and end of construction of the second lift are due to the load transfer of the entire
weight of the second lift to pore pressure.
• As a result, there is no effective stress increase in the clay due to the existence of
the second lift. However, in the time taken to complete the construction of the
second lift, excess pore pressures due to construction of the first lift have dissipated
by 30% in the clay foundation. As a result, the effective stresses in the clay increase
due to a load transfer of 30% of the weight of the first layer.
SHANSEP Strength Model
SHANSEP Strength Model

• 30% of the weight of the first layer is

transferred to a vertical stress increase
in the clay foundation
• For the second lift, the entire weight of
the lift is transferred to an increase in
excess pore pressure and there is zero
increase in effective stress in the clay
foundation due to the addition of the
second lift.
• Long term effect: Unchecking the
“material dependent vertical stress
option” means the entire weights of the
two lifts act to increase the effective
vertical stress within the foundation
SHANSEP Strength Model

• Short-Term Factor of Safety

FS=1.12
SHANSEP Strength Model

• Long term effect:

• Unchecking the “material dependent
vertical stress option” means the
entire weights of the two lifts act to
increase the effective vertical stress
within the foundation
FS=1.57
Anisotropic Material Models
Anisotropic Material Strength Models

• Mohr-Coulomb • Barton-Bandis
• Undrained (Phi=0) • Power Curve
• No Strength (ie. water)
• Hyperbolic
• Infinite Strength
• Discrete Function
• Shear/Normal Function
• Drained-Undrained
• C/Phi Function
• Anisotropic Function • Anisotropic Linear
• Anisotropic Strength • Generalized Anisotropic
• Hoek-Brown • Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear
• Generalized Hoek-Brown • SHANSEP
• Vertical Stress Ratio • Block Model
Anisotropy

Slide2 and Slide3 allow you to simulate anisotropic

materials by specifying different strength properties
in different directions
Anisotropic Function & Anisotropic Strength
Anisotropic Linear & Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear
Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear (SMAL)

Rock Rock
Mass
Mass B
A

Transition
Bedding
Bedding

Normal symmetric anisotropy function

Generalized Anisotropic

• Allows you to create a composite strength model, in

which you can assign any strength model in Slide2 or
Slide3 to any range of slice/column base orientations.
Generalized Anisotropic Strength Type

Base Cohesion
Anisotropic Surface
Anisotropy in 3D

Same thing, except in 3D:

• Rather than “angle” we have “dip” and
“dip direction”
• The anisotropic surface is now 3D

Instead of comparing the angle of the

slice base to the angle of the anisotropic
surface, we compare the difference of the
normal vector of the column base, to the
normal vector of the closest part of the
anisotropic surface.
 Example 1
Generalized anisotropic material model in Slide2
Example 1

• We will set up two materials, and

then a third which is an anisotropic
combination of the two.
• Increase the joint angle until Slide2
can’t catch it anymore.
• Bring into RS2 to compare.
 Example 2
Generalized anisotropic material model in Slide3
Example 2: Open Pit with Anisotropic Material

• Geometry and Geology of the open

pit mine
• Adding anisotropic surface
• MMO
• Creating a 2D section
• Reviewing parameters at slice
bases
Block Model in Slide3
Anisotropic Material Strength Models

• Mohr-Coulomb • Barton-Bandis
• Undrained (Phi=0) • Power Curve
• No Strength (ie. water)
• Hyperbolic
• Infinite Strength
• Discrete Function
• Shear/Normal Function
• Drained-Undrained
• C/Phi Function
• Anisotropic Function • Anisotropic Linear
• Anisotropic Strength • Generalized Anisotropic
• Hoek-Brown • Snowden Modified Anisotropic Linear
• Generalized Hoek-Brown • SHANSEP
• Vertical Stress Ratio • Block Model
Block Model

• A block model is a point cloud of x,y,z

coordinates and materials.
• It has become increasingly popular in the
mining industry in recent years.
Block Model

• Block models can be imported into Slide3

as generic spreadsheets from programs
such as Leapfrog, Deswik, Vulcan,
Datamine, etc.
• The user must simply set the column
number containing the necessary
information – this allows us to import block
models in just about any format.
• How it works is that a material is assigned
to each block. The user can then manually
define the material properties of each
material or import the properties as csv
files.
Coming Soon with Block Model

• Improved visualization:
• View cropped blocks on the pit
• Take 2D sections and view the intersecting blocks
• Block-level properties:
• Allow for a given material to have location-dependent Generalized Hoek-
Brown parameters
• Read dip and dip direction of each block
• Slide2 integration:
• Take your cross sections directly to Slide2 and analyse the block model in 2D
as well
Weak Layers
Weak Layers

• Allow you to model very thin layers of weak material such as Liner or interface
• A weak layer works to crop or clip the failure surface.
• When failure surface starts at the ground surface, it continues down into the soil,
and if it hits a weak layer it will traverse along the weak layer until either it hits the
ground surface or finds the original slip surface intersection on its way back to the
ground surface.
Weak Layers
Weak Layers
New: Heuristic Weak Layer Algorithm

• The automatic method tries all the

combinations of weak layers by turning
them on and off. As the number of weak
layers increase, the computation time
increases significantly.
• Heuristic method was recently released in
Slide3; coming soon to Slide2.
• Heuristic method considers the states of
the weak layers as part of the Particle
Swarm algorithm, thereby resulting in
negligible change in computation time.
End of Module