SLOPE STABILIZATION

Slope stability can be defined as the possibility of soil-covered slopes to

either withstand, or not withstand soil movement.
On soil slopes, soil is continuously acted on by gravity. If the shear
strength in the soil or at a plane in the profile is overcome by the driving force,
failure can occur and it leads to slope instability. Slope position, angle, water
saturation, surrounding climate and soil type are the factors to the potential
movement of soil and the creation of slope instability. Slope stabilization is the
process of resisting driving forces to provide an improved factor of safety against
slope failure.
The stability of slopes is important in the design of such excavations for
foundations, valley sides, and reservoirs, where movement may have serious
consequences.
A number of methods have been adopted to stabilize slopes, each of them found
to be appropriate for a particular set of conditions.

Application of Slope
Purpose of stabilizing
Time available
Accessibility of the site
Types of construction equipment
The cost of repair

Various geotechnical, construction and environmental issues must be considered

while selecting and designing stabilization measures appropriate for a site.
Construction and environmental issues, which can affect the cost and schedule
of the work, should also be addressed during design phase of the project.

REMOVAL AND REPAIR

Rock removal operations are carried out above active highways or

railroads, or

in urban areas, proper care must be taken to prevent injury or

damage from falling of rock. The slope is steep and the toe is close to the
highway or railway, there will be no space to excavate a catch ditch or construct
a barrier.
Therefore, alternative stabilization measures may be to remove loose rock,
secure it in place with bolts, or to drape mesh on the slope. It is generally
preferable to remove loose rock and eliminate the hazard, provided it form a
stable face and not undermines other potentially loose rock on the face.

BENCHING
Benching is a popular technique used on cut slopes in mining, or where a break
in slope is required to retain rock fall in road cuts. It is also useful in breaking up
the span of a high rock cut in order to make the slope appearance more natural.
Bench heights vary from about 3 to 5 m in highway corridor applications to over
30 m for high walls in mines.
The purpose of benching a slope is to transform the behavior of one high slope
into several lower ones. Benching of slopes is also used to control erosion and
establish vegetation. Each bench should have drainage to convey runoff to a
suitable discharge outlet. Benches are also used along highway corridors as a
means of intercepting rock fall before it reached the roadway.

BERMS
A berm is used to provide weight thereby increasing the shear strength at
the toe region of a slope. This is particularly useful for embankments over soft
soil where the ground at the toe can move upward. By locating a counter berm
where displacement is expected to occur, the resistance against sliding is also
increased. Unless careful investigation and thorough analysis is made, there is a
danger that the additional load imposed by the counter berm may increase the
driving force rather than providing the added resistance against sliding and lead
to failure.

STEEL REINFORCEMENT MEMBERS

Steel reinforcement members in the form of rock bolts, cable bolts, resingrouted thread bars, or rock dowels are used to tie the rock mass together to
increase its stability. Whereas rock bolts are commonly used to reinforce the
surface or near-surface rock of the excavation, rock anchors are used for
supporting deep seated instability modes in which sliding or separation on a
discontinuity is possible.

ROCK ANCHOR
Rock anchors are tendons which are placed in competent rock or soil to
control displacements and provide vertical and lateral support for engineered
structures and natural slopes. The primary function of rock anchors is to modify

the normal and shear forces acting on the sliding planes. These anchors may be
fully grouted and untensioned, or anchored at the end and tensioned.
The length of the rock anchor can be from 3 - 100 m. Holes for installation
of the anchors are normally drilled that cross the potential failure plane.

ROCK BOLTS
Rock bolts are used for reinforcement of rock slope and strengthening
closely jointed or highly fissured rocks in cut slopes. These bolts are variable
lengths, normally from 1.2m to over 12m, diameters vary from 10 - 50mm. The
use of wire mesh or straps complements the reinforcement achieved with a rockbolt pattern. In areas of highly jointed or fractured rock, wire mesh can be used
to hold the small blocks of rock between the face plates in place.
GROUTED DOWELS
Grouted rock dowels consist of steel reinforcing bars that are cemented
into boreholes. These bars may or may not be subjected to post-tensioning.
Untensioned dowels, therefore, do not provide any additional normal force across
the failure plane. However, they provide additional shearing resistance across
the potential failure surface plane.
Rock dowels are commonly used to provide support for steeply dipping,
slabby rock formations. They are also used to provide anchor keys and tiebacks
for shearing resistance at the toe and flanks of retaining walls. Dowels can also
be used to anchor draped wire mesh, pin wire mesh to the face of a high wall,
hold strapping in place, or anchor restraining nets or cables.

PILES
Piles are long and relatively slender columns positioned vertically in the
ground or at an angle and are used to transfer load to a more stable substratum.
These are often used to support or stabilize structures built in geologically
unstable areas mainly in construction.
The effectiveness of piles is increased significantly when they are
incorporated into an anchored stabilization system. In addition, piles are used to
minimize the effects of scour and undercutting along the foundations of
waterfront structures. They are either driven into the ground or are placed in
drilled holes. Piles placed in drilled holes directly support the weight of a
structure. Driven piles are installed in soft or loosely consolidated material and
often do not directly absorb the load of a structure. The bearing capacity and
stability of the soil increases as the soil surrounding the piles densifies due to a
decrease in void ratio equivalent to the volume of soil displaced by a driven pile.

RETAINING WALLS
It is an engineered structure constructed to resist lateral forces imposed
by soil movement and water pressure. Retaining walls are commonly used in
combination with fill slopes to reduce the extent of a slope to allow a road to be
widened and to create additional space around buildings. The three types of
retaining walls are gravity, cantilever and anchored.
The most important consideration in proper design and installation of
retaining walls is to recognize and counteract the fact that the retained material
is attempting to move forward and downslope due to gravity. This creates lateral
earth pressure behind the wall which depends on the angle of internal friction

and the cohesive strength of the retained material, as well as the direction and
magnitude of movement the retaining structure undergoes.

GABION WALLS
Gabions are cages, cylinders, or boxes filled with soil or sand that are used
in civil engineering and road wall particularly in hilly region. For dams or
foundation construction, cylindrical metal structures are used. Gabions are multicelled, welded wire or rectangular wire mesh boxes, which are rock filled, and
used for construction of erosion control structures and to stabilize steep slopes.
Their applications include,
Retaining walls

Culvert headwall

Outlet aprons

Temporary check dams.

Shore and beach protection wall

Bridge abutment

SURFACE DRAINAGE
Surface water allowed to flow down a slope or to pond on benches of a
slope can infiltrate into the ground along discontinuities and thereby cause an
increase in the driving forces on an unstable area through a buildup in pore
pressure. Grading and shaping are major considerations in the control of surface
water. Surface water can be controlled through a combination of topographic
shaping and runoff control structures.
Surface runoff is usually collected in permanent facilities such as V- or Ushaped concrete lined or semicircular corrugated steel pipe channels and
diverted away from the slide mass.

SHALLOW DRAINS

The main functions of shallow drains are to remove subsurface water

directly from an unstable slope, to redirect adjacent groundwater sources away
from the subject property and to reduce hydrostatic pressure beneath and
adjacent to engineered structures. Control of subsurface drainage is generally
attained by installing a network of horizontal or vertical shallow drains.

RELIEF WELLS
The main function of relief wells is to lower the water pressures in layers
that are deep down in the subsoil. A water disposal system using a submersible
pump or surface pumping and discharge channels is required to dispose the
water from the wells. Disposal of the water may be very costly as effective
dewatering system requires frequent maintenance. The spacing between relief
wells is very important because it affects the performance and cost of the
system. The depth of relief wells depends on the unstable zone in which stability
needs to be improved.
GEO TEXTILE
These are permeable textiles, woven or non-woven synthetic polymers.
Woven fabrics consist of two threads combined systematically by making them
cross each other perpendicularly. Threads could be multi-filaments or thick mono
filaments, or tape threads. Multi-filament threads are made of polyester and
polyamide; polypropylene and polyethylene are used to make tape threads. Nonwoven fabrics consist of randomly placed short fibers.

VEGETATION

Biotechnical stabilization utilizes mechanical elements in combination with

biological elements to prevent slope failure and erosions. Biotechnical
stabilization can be characterized by the conjunctive use of live vegetation with
retaining structures. Plant material increases soil strength through the transfer of
root tensile strength to soil shear strength. Bio-engineering systems provide
additional support beyond that which can be provided by single plants.
Vegetation on slopes provides protection against erosion and shallow
sliding. Roots reinforce or bind the soil and provide cohesion that improves
stability against shallow sliding. Plant roots reduce pore pressures within slopes
by intercepting rainfall and by evapotranspiration.
The small size of flexible roots mobilize their tensile strength by soil root
friction and increasing shear strength of the soil root-matrix whereas, the large
size roots intersect the failure plane and act as individual anchors in the soil.