# Experimental Study on the Deformation and Mechanical Properties of Bamboo Forest Slopes
## 3 Results
### Slope Horizontal Displacement Analysis  
Figure 7 shows the variation in the horizontal displacement of the slope with the load on the top of the slope. As seen in Figure 7a, the critical load in test G1 that made the displacement of the five measurement points start to alter significantly was 30 kN. With increasing load, the displacements at D1, D2, and D3 all significantly increased. The displacement increase rate at these three measurement points was significantly increased when the load was loaded to 60 kN, and the maximum displacement occurred at D3 for about 40 mm. Combined with the failure to the slope, it is not difficult to find that the sliding surface of this set of slopes was located between measurement points D3 and D4. The soil on either side of the sliding surface suffered from shear failure, which made the soil above the sliding surface more prone to slip. As a result, D4 and D5, which were closer to the foot of the slope, did not shift significantly during loading. As seen in Figure 7b, the critical load in test G2 that made the displacement of the five measurement points start to alter was 20 kN. With the increase in load, the displacement at the foot of the slope increased for all measurement points except D5. When loaded to 65 kN, there was a more significant growth in the rate of displacement increase at each measurement point. The maximum displacement occurred at D2 around 43 mm. As seen in Figure 7c, the critical load in test G3 that made the displacement of five measurement points start to shift was 15 kN, and the displacement of each measurement point showed a roughly linear increase in the process of step-by-step loading. When the load was increased to 60 kN, the growth rate of displacement at each measurement point was raised, and the maximum displacement occurred at D2 of about 57 mm. Compared with test G2, the maximum displacement increase was about 32%.  
Figure 8a compares the displacement variation of measurement point D4 in each group of tests. Compared with test G1, the displacement increase in measurement point D4 in  
Figure 7: Variation of horizontal displacement in the slope with a slope top load. (**a**) Test G1 plain soil slope. (**b**) Test G2 bamboo-rooted slope. (**c**) Test G3 rainfall bamboo-rooted slope.  
test G2 was more apparent, and the sliding area of the slope increased significantly. This phenomenon was mainly caused by the intricate underground growth of bamboo rhizomes, with roots intertwining to form a web-like structure. Bamboo rhizomes drove additional soil to slide in the process of slope sliding  
Figure 8b compares the displacement variation of measurement point D3 in each group of tests. It can be found that the presence of bamboo rhizomes played a specific limiting role in the horizontal displacement of the slope and the stability of slope G2 was improved compared to slope G1. Due to the effect of rainfall, the displacements of measured point D3 on the slope of G3 were higher than those of G2 at all loading levels. This suggests that the stability of this slope was significantly reduced compared with that of slope G2  
The above test results show that the slope displacement presented the rule that the top of the slope was large and the foot of the slope was little under the action of the load on the top of the slope. The addition of bamboo rhizomes had a slight effect on the maximum displacement of the slope, but it had a significant contribution to the increase in the sliding region. The displacement of the rainfall bamboo root slope showed an approximately linear increasing trend in the process of step-by-step loading. It produced the largest displacement among the three groups of slopes, which was less stable.