Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India

Matric suction contributes to the effective stress of unsaturated soils and increases the shear strength of these soils by imparting them an apparent cohesion strength component. This apparent cohesion strength component of the partly saturated Dominician allophanic soils is considered to be related to the matric suction term (u_a?u_w) by a parabolic relationship.

The partly saturated allophanic soil slopes of Dominica would invariably fail from loss of apparent cohesion upon saturation of the soil mantle by the infiltrating water front only if (a) the average slope angle (β) is greater than or equal to the drained shear strength parameter of the unsaturated soil (Φ_d) (slopes with β ≥ Φ_d are referred to as category 1 slopes in this study) and (b) the drained cohesion parameter (c_d) belonging to the partly saturated soil of the category 1 slope is mainly contributed by matric suction induced apparent cohesion (c_app) and contribution from true cohesion (c′) is absent. However, the possibility of the category 1 slopes (for the case 1 situation) failing in the saturated condition from effective stress reduction due to rise in ground water table is shown to be an unfeasible proposition. In contrast, for the case 1 situation, the partly saturated category 2 slopes (β < Φ_d) are insusceptible to failure from reduction in effective stress due to loss of matric suction but fail in the saturated condition from effective stress reduction due to rise in ground water table. If the allophanic soils were to possess a sufficient magnitude of true cohesion (c′), even the partly saturated category 1 slopes possessing slope angles (β) much in excess of their Φ_d values (β ? Φ_d = 15.1°) would remain stable upon total elimination of the matric suction induced cohesion. However, partly saturated category 1 slopes possessing a true cohesion component and insusceptible to failure from reduction in effective stress upon loss of matric suction, invariably fail in the saturated condition from reduction in effective stress due to rise in ground water table.

Using the methodology developed in this study, two previously reported case histories pertaining to rain induced translational landslides in the residual soil areas of Brazil are re-examined and the results obtained in this study are found to be in agreement with the findings of the previous researchers.