Predicting Modes and Displacements of Seismic Rock Slope Failures

Seismically induced rock slope failures have resulted in billions of dollars of economic damage and enormous loss of life throughout the world. Accurate prediction of the triggering and run out of these failures is elusive for a variety of reasons, including knowledge of the physical modes of failure. Our research explores the potential failure modes of an idealized rigid rock block and expands the modes typically considered to include not only sliding but also toppling (pure forward rotation) and slumping (combined backward rotation and translation). The yield acceleration (or minimum inertial acceleration to cause block movement) for slumping, similar to toppling, is found to be lower than for pure translational sliding. These yield accelerations indicate the initial modes of rock block failure; however, they do not always predict the ultimate failure mode. To predict the final failure modes, the results of discrete element numerical analyses were compared to pseudo static yield acceleration to develop a seismic failure mode decision-making chart based on block geometry and interface friction. With regard to seismic displacement predictions, current simplified models predicting ultimate displacement of a mass under seismic conditions are limited to purely translating, sliding blocks (i.e. Newmark's sliding block method). Our modeling introduces additional simplified analyses to predict ultimate displacement in toppling and slumping modes as well. Important findings from these new methods are that the magnitude of seismically-induced displacement is dependent on the size of the block (or failure mass) and that as the yield acceleration decreases the seismically induced displacements increase. We plan to map these tools into analyses that evaluate rock slope systems with complex geology and geotechnical characteristics. It is envisioned that the decision chart, which predicts the initial and ultimate modes of failure based on block geometry and interface friction, and the toppling and slumping displacement models can be used to enhance seismic hazard evaluations for rock slope failure at both regional and site-specific scales. Financial support for this research was provided by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant CMMI-1156413.