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The strength deterioration of compacted loess caused by drying–wetting cycles is influenced by various factors. In this paper, the influence of dry density (ρ), drying–wetting amplitude (A), and lower bounds of drying–wetting cycles (wl) on strength deterioration of compacted loess due to drying–wetting cycles was studied through triaxial tests and environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). By fitting a hyperbolic function to the deterioration data, the influence of ρ, A, and wl on the maximum deterioration rate and the development speed of the deterioration of strength parameters were quantitatively analyzed. Accordingly, a compacted loess deterioration model (CLDM) that comprehensively considers the influencing factors was established. Finally, based on Python, the CLDM was applied to finite element software ABAQUS, and the stability of a loess fill slope after exposure to drying–wetting cycles was analyzed. Analysis results show that the CLDM is capable of simulating the effect of drying–wetting cycles on the stability of fill slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gravity increase method (GIM) has an inherent defect that may result in an incorrectly calculated safety factor or result in a failure to obtain the expected outcome. In this study, the error source of the GIM was quantitatively analyzed through theoretical derivation to address this problem. Hence, the modified gravity increase method (MGIM), which can eliminate the error in the GIM, was developed by adding a correction factor to the friction angle during the gravity increase procedure. The MGIM was comparatively studied by applying the GIM, shear strength reduction method (SSR), and MGIM to homogeneous slope models under different dimensions, and an ACADS (Australian Computer Aided Design Society) test was introduced to validate the applicability of the MGIM to heterogeneous slopes. The analysis results proved that the MGIM does not have the inherent defect present in the GIM, and can provide accurate results in the stability analysis of both homogeneous slope and heterogeneous slopes with various slope angle and slope height. Finally, the MGIM and GIM were applied to the numerical analysis of a geotechnical centrifugal model test of a soil slope. The results indicate that the MGIM is capable of capturing the deformation and failure characteristic of geotechnical centrifugal model test of soil slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]