Abstract
This paper is concerned with a further extension of the authors' back analysis methods presented previously to non-circular slip surfaces. where the Morgenstern-Price method (M-P method) is used to express the factor of safety. Back analysis based on the M-P method is rather complicated in comparison with back analysis based on the other methods, because of the inherent complexity of the M-P method itself. The first part of the paper presents a way to determine the c-tanφ relationship for the M-P method. Subsequently, two procedures are given to obtain trial slip surfaces. By combining each of these trial slip surfaces with the c-tanφ relationship, an extremely limited range within which the unknown parameters, c and φ, should exist, is obtained. Application of this method to a fictitious and a practical problem indicates that the proposed method provides accurate and reliable strength parameters.
