Recent development of laser scanning device increased the capability of representing rock outcrop in a very high resolution. Accurate 3D point cloud model with rock joint information can help geologist to estimate stability of rock slope on-site or off-site. An automatic plane extraction method was developed by computing normal directions and grouping them in similar direction. Point normal was...

Based on the kinematic approach of limit analysis, a full set of upper bound solutions for the stability of homogeneous rock slopes subjected to tension cracks are obtained. The generalized Hoek-Brown failure criterion is employed to describe the non-linear strength envelope of rocks. In this paper, critical failure mechanisms are determined for cracks of known depth but unspecified location, c...

Permafrost is determined to a large extent by the Earth's surface temperature, therefore it distributes mainly in high altitude and latitude regions. However, stable, warm (about -1 °C) permafrost occurs within a scree slope in northern China that is more than 600 km south of the southernmost limit of latitudinal permafrost on the Eurasian Continent. It is at an elevation of only 900 m above se...

In layered and blocky rock slopes, toppling failure is a common mode of instability that may occur in mining engineering. If this type of slope failure occurs as a consequence of another type of failure, it is referred to as the secondary toppling failure. “Slide-head-toppling” is a type of secondary toppling failures, where the upper part of the slope is toppled as a consequence of a semi-circ...

Reliable monitoring of unstable rock slopes is a prerequisite for successful mitigation landslide hazards. However, most state-of-the art techniques rely on measuring the local surface displacement in potential release area. In contrast, recording ambient vibration data allows analyzing structural dynamic parameters slope, such as resonance frequency, polarization vibration, and energy dissipat...

In the Obernberg valley, the Eastern Alps, landforms recently interpreted as moraines are re-interpreted as rock avalanche deposits. The catastrophic slope failure involved an initial rock volume of about 45 million m³, with a runout of 7.2 km over a total vertical distance of 1330 m (fahrböschung 10°). 36Cl surface-exposure dating of boulders of the avalanche mass indicates an event age of 8.6...

Joints often have important effects on seepage and elastic properties of jointed rock mass and therefore on the rock slope stability. In the present paper, a model for discrete jointed network is established using contact-freemeasurement technique and geometrical statistic method. A coupled mathematical model for characterizing anisotropic permeability tensor and stress tensor was presented and...

This study reviews seismograms from 10 rock-fall events recorded between 1992 and 2001 by the permanent seismological network Sismalp in the French Alps. A new seismic magnitude scale was defined, which allowed us to compare and classify ground-motion vibrations generated by these Alpine rock-falls. Each rock-fall has also been characterized by its ground-motion duration t30 at an epicentral di...