Toppling Failure of Discontinuous Rock Slopes and Their Stabilisation

Abstract

Theoretical conditions for the stability of discontinuous rock slopes against flexural and rotational toppling failure areproposed depending upon the various arrangements and number of discontinuity sets. In addition, the stabilization of suchslopes against toppling by grouted rockbolts is studied and basic principles for the introduction of the reinforcement effect ofthe bolts are laid and their applications to some typical cases of toppling are shown.
The stability conditions are then applied to predict the stability of slopes with various arrangement and number of discontinuity sets. Good agreement has been found among the results of in-situ observations and of model tests and those calculated by the developed theoretical stability conditions. The developed conditions are deemed to be capable of predicting the stability of slopes against toppling very accurately and to enable a designer to evaluate the stability of a slope in question in a very short period of time.