Assessment of seismic landslide susceptibility of bedrock and overburden layer slope based on shaking table tests

The landslide susceptibility assessment (LSA) of bedrock and overburden layer slopes subjected to earthquake action remains a challenging issue. In this study, an LSA method was proposed for the seismic design of slope engineering. First, a frequency response function was used to identify the vibration characteristics of the slope based on signal processing. The characteristic factors and assessment process of the LSA are then proposed. Based on the similarity principle, the method was applied to three groups of shaking table tests with different overburden thicknesses. The results show that with the increase of the thickness of the overburden layer, the landslide susceptibility of the bedrock and overburden layer slope increases, and the critical amplitude of the seismic landslide continuously decreases. The seismic LSA indexes of the model tests calculated by the proposed method show better robustness than those calculated by the transfer coefficient method. Through linear fitting, the critical amplitude of the seismic landslide was predicted more accurately. A limitation of this method is that multiple acceleration-measuring data points are required for earthquakes and the excitation data must be stable. The feasibility of this method need to be verified for complex multistructured slopes in the future. •Assessing seismic susceptibility of bedrock and overburden layer slope.•Reliability is verified by three groups of shaking table tests.•Effects of Overburden thickness on the critical amplitude and distance of landslide are analyzed.