ENERGY APPROACH TO ROCK SLOPE STABILITY ANALYSIS

Rock slope stability analyses for plane and wedge slides have been wid ely used for the last thirty years. Given certain assumptions, the dis tribution of normal forces among the contact planes is statistically d eterminate for plane and wedge slides, and the resisting and driving f orces and the factor of safety may be calculated by limiting equilibri um methods. Certain geologic environments, however, produce potential failures on curved failure surfaces that cannot be modeled as either p lane or wedge slides. Standard rock stability analysis methods present ly available are not adequate to treat these rock slopes with curved s liding surfaces. This paper presents an energy approach that can analy ze the stability of a rock block with any number of contact planes or a curved contact surface.