SLAMMER — The Complete Guide: Earthquake Slope Displacement with Newmark Analysis
SLAMMER from the USGS performs sliding-block analysis: rather than only asking whether a slope is stable, it estimates how many centimetres it will move during an earthquake. The program is free with no restrictions on use and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux through Java.
SLAMMER
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Sliding-block (Newmark) analysis of earthquake-induced slope displacement, with a built-in strong-motion library.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Record library — more than 2,100 strong-motion records from 28 earthquakes.
- Filtering and selection — by record properties, plus your own records.
- Rigid block (Newmark) — the classic permanent-displacement method.
- Coupled methods — decoupled and fully coupled analyses that account for the dynamic response of the block.
- Simplified methods — quick estimates from empirical relations, with graphs and tables.
What to keep in mind
SLAMMER does not compute the static factor of safety or the yield acceleration itself — those come from a separate slope-stability analysis. It needs Java 7 or later, the latest version was revised in 2014, and it assumes the user understands the assumptions and limits of sliding-block methods.
Related tools
For static stability and yield acceleration — SSAP. For one-dimensional site response — pyStrata. For regional seismic hazard — OpenQuake Engine.
SSAP — Slope Stability Analysis
Lorenzo Borselli, Università di San Luis Potosí
Limit equilibrium slope stability analysis, with automatic search for the critical surface.
Get it from the vendor
pyStrata
Albert Kottke
One-dimensional seismic site response of a soil column — equivalent-linear, time series and RVT, in Python.
Get it from the vendor
OpenQuake Engine
GEM Foundation
Seismic hazard and risk calculations — PSHA, earthquake scenarios and damage and loss estimates, from the GEM Foundation.
Get it from the vendor
OpenSees
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, UC Berkeley
Nonlinear and dynamic structural analysis driven by scripts, from the earthquake engineering world.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
SLAMMER is a free, well-recognised way to estimate seismic displacement of slopes and embankments — a natural companion to an ordinary stability analysis.