stability evaluation of un-braced cuts

In this study, the critical depth of un-braced open cuts is investigated using physical and numerical modeling carried out by the centrifuge machine at the iran university of science and technology and a fish code developed in the finite difference software, flac, respectively. the undrained shear strength of the soil was measured using unconfined compression test (uct), miniature vane shear test (mvst), and pocket penetrometer test (ppt) and the results were used to develop a statistical correlation between the soil water content and its strength. in addition, upper and lower bound limit analysis solutions were used as benchmarks to verify the results. finally, the values of critical excavation depth obtained through numerical analysis and centrifuge modeling in this study were compared with those estimated by the limit analysis and limit equilibrium methods.