Introduction

Traditionally, trial slip surfaces are described by a defined geometric shape; for example, the arc of a circle. However, recent studies have explored the possibility of incrementally altering portions of the slip surface to improve limit equilibrium results (Greco, 1996; Malkawi et al., 2001). A variation of the published techniques is available in SLOPE/W, referred to as slip surface optimization. 

This example outlines the SLOPE/W optimization procedure, compares optimized and non-optimized trial slip surfaces, and provides guidelines on using optimization.