Experimental and numerical analysis of rock block stability using a remotely positioned laser Doppler vibrometer

Abstract

This paper examines a new method of evaluating the stability of a rock slope using a remotely positioned LDV (laser Doppler vibrometer). We conducted an experiment using physical models and performed a numerical analysis to evaluate the new method. The physical model included: (1) concrete blocks on an artificial soil slope with two block sizes and three slopes; (2) concrete blocks bonded to the concrete base with different contact area. The LDV measurements agreed with conventional seismometer measurements. The dominant frequency of the blocks varied with the stability and dominant frequency and the amplitude varied with the block size. The numerical model was used to examine a concrete block adhered to a concrete base with different contact areas. The dominant frequency of the blocks determined using the numerical model agreed with those obtained from the physical experiments. We analyzed different sized blocks to examine the scaling effects. The dominant frequency of the blocks was inversely related to the block size. These results demonstrated the effectiveness of LDV for evaluating the stability of rock slopes and cleared the block size scaling effects.