Geotextiles and Geomembranes 10 (1991) 125- 146 Stability of Fabric Reinforced Cohesive Soil Slopes Andrzej Sawicki & Danuta LeSniewska Institute of Hydroengineering, IBW PAN, ul. Cysters6w 11,80-953 Gdarisk-Oliwa, Poland ABSTRACT The aim of the present paper is two-fold. Firstly, the influence of design parameters, like the self weight of the soil, the angle of internal friction, cohesion, and the amount of reinforcement, on the stability of reinforced soil slopes is studied. The analysis presented is performed within a framework of the rigid-plastic theory of reinforced soil. The basic equations of the theory are solved with the help of the method of characteristics. As the solution to the system of governing equations, the bearing capacity of reinforced slope and the failure surface are obtained. Secondly , numerical computations performed for various sets of initial data allow for the study of the influence of particular parameters on the overall stability of reinforced slopes, as well as for some general conclusions. The approach proposed is rigorous from the viewpoint of limitplasticity andprovides zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONML a framework inside which a discussion of other existing methods is performed. 1 INTRODUCTION The present paper completes a series of articles devoted to the application of limit plasticity to the analysis of reinforced soil structures. ‘** In the first paper of Sawicki and Lesniewska’ a simple method of estimation of the bearing capacity of reinforced soil retaining walls was proposed. This method was based on a rigid-plastic model of reinforced soil and limit theorems. A subsequent paper’ dealt with the plastic limit analysis of reinforced soil slopes. The theoretical model of reinforced cohesive soil 125 Geotextiles and Geomembranes 0266-I 144/91/$03.50 0 1991 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Great Britain