doi:10.3850/978-981-08-7920-4_S2-G06-cd

ABSTRACT

There are various protection measures against rockfalls in mountainous areas. A wall embankment is effective in rockfall hazard mitigation at a dangerous slope end. We conducted slope rockfall tests on full-scale wall embankments that was made of sandy soil reinforced with geosynthetics. An impact dispersing layer, which is made of geocells filled with relatively small gravel, is placed on the mountain side of wall embankments.We use the steel covered RC blocks up to 17.1 ton to simulate rockfalls. The shape of RC blocks is based on the definition in ETAG- 27. RC blocks rolled down fromthe top of a rock-slope 37mhighwith a slope of 42 degrees in the test site, a quarry, and hit against wall embankments. Even a huge RC block weighing 17.1 tons and carrying 2709 kJ of energy was stopped.Moreover, no wall embankment collapse occurred, butwall embankments were partially damaged and repaired.One of important observations is a possibility that an RC block carries it toward the top of a wall embankment because of its rolling momentum.We show the experimental results, especially the relationship between impact force and impact energy, which is valuable contribution.

Keywords: Rockfall, Wall-embankment, Geosynthetics, Full-scale test, Slope-rockfall.

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