The stability of geotechnical infrastructure assets, such as cuttings and embankments, is crucial to the safe and efficient delivery of transport services. The successful emulation of geotechnical models of deterioration of infrastructure slopes has the potential to inform slope design, maintenance and remediation by introducing the time dependency of deterioration into geotechnical asset management. We have performed computer experiments of deterioration, measured by the factor of safety (FoS), for a set of cutting slope geometries and soil properties that are common in the southern UK. Whilst computer experiments are an extremely useful and cost-effective method of better understanding deterioration mechanisms, it would not be practical to run enough experiments to understand relations between high-dimensional inputs and outputs. Therefore, we trained a fully-Bayesian Gaussian process emulator using an ensemble of 75 computer experiments to predict the FoS. We construct two different emulator models, one approximating the FoS temporal evolution with a quadratic model and one approximating the temporal evolution with a B-spline model; and we emulated their parameters. We also compare the ability of our models to predict failure time. The developed models could be used to inform infrastructure cutting slope design and management, and extend serviceable life.

翻译：岩土基础设施（如路堑与路堤）的稳定性对安全高效提供交通服务至关重要。通过将劣化的时间依赖性引入岩土资产管理，成功仿真基础设施边坡的岩土劣化模型可为边坡设计、维护与修复提供决策依据。我们针对英国南部地区常见的路堑边坡几何形态与土体特性，开展了以安全系数（FoS）为度量指标的计算机劣化实验。尽管计算机实验是深入理解劣化机制的极有效且经济的方法，但通过大量实验来理解高维输入与输出间关系并不现实。为此，我们基于75组计算机实验集合训练了完全贝叶斯高斯过程仿真器以预测FoS。我们构建了两种不同的仿真模型：一种采用二次模型逼近FoS时间演化规律，另一种采用B样条模型逼近时间演化规律，并对模型参数进行了仿真。我们还比较了两种模型预测破坏时间的能力。所开发的模型可为基础设施路堑边坡的设计与管理提供依据，并延长其可使用年限。