Physical System Description
The physical system of SSP, as shown in Fig:PhysicalSystem, includes the following elements:
PS1: A slope comprised of one soil layer.
PS2: A water table, which may or may not exist.
Figure: An example slope for analysis by SSP, where the dashed line represents the water table
Morgenstern-Price analysis morgenstern1965 of the slope involves representing the slope as a series of vertical slices. As shown in Fig:IndexConvention, the index i is used to denote a value for a single slice, and an interslice value at a given index i refers to the value between slice i and adjacent slice i+1.
Figure: Index convention for slice and interslice values
A free body diagram of the forces acting on a slice is displayed in Fig:ForceDiagram. The specific forces and symbols will be discussed in detail in Sec:General Definitions and Sec:Data Definitions.
Figure: Free body diagram of forces acting on a slice