Efficient Bayesian updating for deformation prediction of high rock slopes induced by excavation with monitoring data

This study develops an efficient Bayesian updating method with monitoring data for predicting the deformation of high rock slopes induced by excavation. The importance ranking based on random forest is introduced to identify the key rock parameters as random variables in the Bayesian updating. The surrogate models using support vector machine are constructed to approximate the physical numerical models using FLAC3D for evaluating slope deformation. A practical example involving deformation prediction of the excavated left-bank rock slope for the well-known Baihetan hydropower station in southwest China is presented. The results indicate that the developed Bayesian updating method can efficiently and accurately update the posterior distributions of rock parameters and predict the deformation of high rock slopes induced by excavation. Incorporating the monitoring data of displacement into the Bayesian updating can effectively reduce the uncertainty of rock parameters and displacement prediction. As a result, the displacement predictions made by the Bayesian updating are closer to the monitoring data than the prior displacement predictions. In addition, incorporating more monitoring data of displacement from the previous excavation stages produces more accurate displacement predictions for subsequent excavation stages.