Determination of the Noncircular Critical Slip Surface in Slope Stability Analysis by Meeting Ant Colony Optimization

Determining the noncircular critical slip surface is the key problem in slope stability analysis. Essentially, this problem is a path search, and therefore, ant colony optimization is an extremely suitable method to use to obtain a solution. To overcome the shortcomings of ant colony optimization, using the principle of searching an entire road by forward and reverse searches of ants, a new algorithm, meeting ant colony optimization, is proposed. Then, combined with typical mature limit equilibrium analysis (Spencer method), meeting ant colony optimization is used to locate the critical slip surface of a slope. Through two typical examples the effectiveness of the new algorithm is verified. The results show that for both the entire search scope and the search scope from one point, the meeting ant colony optimization performs better than ant colony optimization, which shows that in searching for the critical slip surface of a slope, meeting ant colony optimization provides better solution diversity. Using meeting ant colony optimization, the critical slip surface of a slope can be located in a larger scope and more rapidly than by ant colony optimization.