GE481 Engineering Geology and Early Warning

Contents and structure

Part A (Rocks):

• Engineering classification of rock masses with emphasis on discontinuities such as foliation, faults and fractures and their shear strengths, and introduction into the Q-system for classification of rock masses.
• Rock stresses in mountain slopes and fractures, tunnels, underground excavations and road cuts.
• Introduction to different types of slope instabilities in rocks, such as plane failure, wedge failure, toppling, circular failure or complex failure patterns.
• Introduction to data collection and methods for stability analysis of rock slopes, calculation of the factor of safety for planar gliding using conventional methods and computer programs. One day of field work along a road section for collection of own data.
• Stabilization and protection measures for unstable rock slopes.

Part B (Soils):

• Engineering properties of soils.
• Soil mechanics; total stress, pore pressure and effectiv stress.
• Soil strength and slope stability.
• Analyze and calculate the factor of safety for translational slides and rotational slides in soils - by hand and with computer programs.

Part C (Early warning):

The first or second week of June is obligatory and includes lectures, a field visit and exercises. One of the days in that week we will walk up to the unstable mountain Joasetebergi or Stiksmoen, between Aurland and Flåm, supervised by geologist from NVE, and explore the geology and monitoring instruments. The students should prepare and give an oral presentation; either about an unstable object in Norway and suggest a monitoring system for that object, or interpret a set of data collected from some of the instruments operated at Joasetebergi or some other objects monitored by NVE in Norway.

Learning Outcome

Knowledge

The student:

• understands the concept of factor of safety for rock- and soil slopes.
• has an overview of different methods and instruments used to monitor unstable slopes.

Skills

The student is able to:

• conduct an engineering classification of soils and rocks.
• analyze slope stability and calculate the factor of safety for unstable rock- and soil slopes using hand computations, spread sheets software and computer programs.

General competence

The student is able to:

• carry out a sensitivity analysis for a particular slope and determine which variables affect the slope stability most when subject to changes.
• design and plan a monitoring program for an unstable slope.

Entry requirements

None.

Recommended previous knowledge

GE406: Introduction to Geology

GE407: Introduction to Applied Geophysics

GE408: Mineralogy and Petrography

GE414: Structural Geology and Tectonics

GE484: Geohazards and landslide mapping

FY400: Introduction to Physics

Teaching methods

Lectures, practicals and fieldtrip/fieldwork (two days).

Compulsory learning activities

Approved exercise reports:

a. translational slides

b. rotational slides

c. case study - back calculation of old slide events.

Approved report from field work - unstable road cuts.

Oral presentation of instrumentation and/or data from an unstable bedrock slope in Norway.

Assessment

Written examination under supervision, 4 hours.

Grading A-F.

Examination support material

Ruler, simple calculator.

More about examination support material