Locating Global Critical Slip Surface Using the Morgenstern-Price Method and Simulated Annealing Algorithm

The paper presents a new limit equilibrium method to locate the global critical slip surface for slope profiles with complex geology. In this method, noncircular slip surface is assumed to calculate the factor of safety with the Morgenstern-Price method. And the simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to search for the global critical slip surface. For the given slope profile with high complexity, the search strategy can locate the global critical slip surface regardless of the initial slip surface location. Compared to the slope profile evaluated by the commercial software Geo-Studio 2007, the calculation result of the algorithm coded by Fortran and Matlab is approved to have good precision.