Farzin Kalantary - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, K.N.
Mahmoud Ghazavi - Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering
Hamid Tavakolian Bana - Graduate student, Faculty of Civil Engineering,

An optimization process for soil-nails deployed for stabilization of slopes and trenches is presented in this article using the limit equilibrium approach. A number of factors such as inclination, length, size and spacing of the nails affect the stability number of a slope with a specific geometry (i.e. height and slope angle). Furthermore, the influences of these parameters on the factor of safety vary with shear strength parameters of soils. Therefore, in order to arrive at a specific factor of safety (FS) for a particular slope with minimum number and length of nails, a genetic algorithm (GA) procedure using GA toolbox of MATLAB software is utilized. Diagrams presenting the influences of the above mentioned parameters on the factor of safety are developed, thus offering simple means of evaluating optimized pattern of soil-nail system. It is shown that this process will lead to the desired factor of safety with a minimum number and length of installed nails.

Slope stability, Soil nail, Factor of Safety, Genetic Algorithm, Optimization