Mahin Roosta R., Sadaghyani M.h., Pak A.,
Volume 3, Issue 3 (September & December 2005)
Abstract
Existence of discontinuities causes higher deformability and lower strength in rock masses. Thus joints can change the rock mass behaviour due to the applied loads. For this reason properties and orientation of the joint sets have a great effect on the stability of rock slopes. In this paper, after introducing some numerical methods for evaluating the factor of safety for the stability of slopes, stability of jointed rock slopes in the plane strain condition is investigated with the strength reduction technique this method is modified and applied in the multilaminate framework. First of all, stability of one homogeneous rock slope is investigated and compared with the limit equilibrium method. Then stability of a layered rock slope is analyzed with some modifications in the strength reduction technique. Effects of orientation, tensile strength and dilation of layered joint sets on the factor of safety and location of the sliding block are explained.
R. Mahin Roosta, A. Alizadeh,
Volume 10, Issue 2 (June 2012)
Abstract
In the first impounding of rockfill dams, additional settlements occur in upstream side in saturated rockfills due to collapse
phenomenon even high rainy seasons can cause additional deformation in the dumped rockfills. Unfortunately these
displacements are not taken into account in the conventional numerical models which are currently used to predict embankment
dam behavior during impounding. In this paper to estimate these displacements, strain hardening-strain softening model in Flac
is modified based on the laboratory tests, in which same impounding process in such dams is considered. Main feature of the
model is reproduction of nonlinear behavior of rockfill material via mobilized shear strength parameters and using collapse
coefficient to display induced settlement due to inundation. This mobilization of shear strength parameters associated with some
functions for dilatancy behavior of rockfill are used in a finite difference code for both dry and wet condition of material. Collapse
coefficient is defined as a stress dependent function to show stress release in the material owing to saturation. To demonstrate
how the model works, simulation of some large scale triaxial tests of rockfill material in Gotvand embankment dam is presented
and results are compared with those from laboratory tests, which are in good agreement. The technique could be used with any
suitable constitutive law in other coarse-grained material to identify collapse settlements due to saturation
