由於地質狀況不佳和環境因素的影響，邊坡破壞已為台灣之主要地質災害，土壤邊坡主要為弧形破壞，極限平衡法則為最常使用之分析方法，其須先假設可能滑動面位置及破壞時土體為剛體，而本文另以變形分析程式FLAC做探討，其可考慮土體的變形性及張力強度的影響。
本文在探討土壤邊坡穩定性為主，係利用以有限差分法之觀念所寫成之分析程式FLAC進行研究，所分析之邊坡則分為完全乾燥邊坡與含地下水位面之邊坡做比較與討論。安全係數的訂定是以FLAC程式配合剪力強度折減公式所決定，再根據程式之輸出資料，判斷可能之破壞滑動面位置與邊坡穩定之安全係數，並與以極限平衡法之分析程式STABL做比較，亦以不同材料參數探討邊坡之穩定性。
FLAC程式與STABL程式分析所得之安全係數，在固定坡高而針對不同坡角之完全乾燥邊坡與含地下水位面邊坡分析下，所得結果比較：1) 由於STABL程式未考慮土體之變形性，且假設破壞實為完全剪力破壞，而FLAC在考慮不同之彈性模數與張力強度；2) 當邊坡坡角或地下水位面上升時，安全係數隨之下降；3) 在坡角大於60度、彈性模數小於1MPa下，FLAC所得之安全係數皆比STABL所得小5%以上；4) 當地下水位面上升時，FLAC與STABL所得之安全係數差異也隨之越大。

The deformation analysis program used is the FLAC code, in which finite-difference scheme is employed for both the spatial and time domains. The corresponding factor of safety (FS) and failure surface are determined by the strength-reduction concept plus the displacement history of a control point and the maximum shear strain contour, respectively. Two slope models were examined in this thesis, including a completely dry soil slope and another having varying groundwater table. For all computation cases, Mohr-Coulomb law was adopted for soil mass and the slope height was kept constant, but with changing slope inclination, soil modulus (E), soil tensile strength (T0), and groundwater table. The most popular LEM slope stability code — STABL5 (using Bishop slice method) was also used for a comparison reason.
The analysis results are summarized as follows: 1) at the same slope inclination and groundwater table, FLAC yields a FS value and failure surface comparable to STABL5 for a soil mass with high modulus and infinite tensile strength; 2) as the slope inclination and/or groundwater table increase, the value of FS computed decreases; 3) when the slope inclination is greater than 60°, and E is smaller than 1MPa with limited value of T0, the value of FS computed by FLAC is lower by at least 5% than that by STABL5 (here, indicating the limitation of STABL5''s application; 4) as the groundwater table increases, the difference in FS between FLAC and STABL5 becomes larger.

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