Abstract
Since 1960's, many methods to evaluate the stability of slurry trench walls have been proposed. However, there are no reliable and general methods developed due to the complicated nature of the problem. In this paper a new 3-D limit equilibrium method to evaluate the stability of slurry trench walls is proposed, which considers the importance of lateral confining forces acting on a sliding soil mass, that has not been considered in the past. The proposed method is applied to results of a centrifuge model test on a slurry trench constructed in sandy ground and compared with analytical results by the 3-D elasto-plastic FEM. This shows how applicable the proposed method is to sandy ground.
