Rock slope stability evaluation using kinematic and kinetic methods along the Kamyaran-Marivan road, west of Iran

Abstract

Interest in rock slope stability in mountainous regions has increased greatly in recent years. This issue has become a topic of major interest for geoscientists and engineering professionals, as well as for private citizens and local administrators, in many parts of the world. This paper evaluates the stability of seven rock slopes along the Kamyaran-Marivan tourist road, Kurdistan province, Iran, using various methods. The two main reasons for performing this research were to determine whether different methods of stability analysis provide the same results, and to determine how different factors such as the presence of water, tension cracks, and seismic forces affect the stability of these rock slopes. Firstly, field investigations were performed to obtain the engineering characteristics of the rock masses, discontinuities, and intact rocks of the slopes. Secondly, laboratory tests were carried out on rock samples obtained from the slopes, to determine the engineering properties of the intact rocks. Then for each rock slope, the contour diagram of discontinuities and slope face was drawn in the Dips v.5.1 software environment, and the failure mechanism was determined based on the kinematic or stereographic method. Next, the factors of safety of the rock slopes were calculated using the limit equilibrium method, based on the failure mechanisms resulting from the kinematic method. The accuracy of the results obtained by these two methods was investigated using SWedge v.4.0 software. The results indicated that four rock slopes have a potential for plane, wedge, and toppling failure, and three others are stable. Also, it was found that the stability of the studied rock slopes decreases greatly in the presence of water, tension cracks, and seismic forces.