Impact of spatially varying rock disturbance on rock slope stability

Degradation of rock mass produced by rock blasting, stress relief, and other causes is an important factor in the assessment of rock strength. Quantified as a disturbance factor, such degradation varies depending on blasting control, stress state and stress relief, and rock mass quality. This study focuses on the impact of disturbance on the safety of slopes. The disturbance in the rock mass is characterized by the geometry of the disturbed zone, its size, the magnitude, and the decaying rate with the distance away from the slope surface. A method accounting for decay of rock disturbance is presented. A study of the impact of rock disturbance characteristics on the quantitative stability measures of slopes was carried out. These characteristics included disturbed zone geometry, its thickness, the maximum magnitude of the disturbance factor, and the rate of disturbance decaying. The thickness of the disturbed zone and the maximum factor of disturbance were found to have the greatest impact. For example, the factor of safety for a 45° slope in low-quality rock mass can decrease from 1.96 to 1.09 as the thickness of the disturbed zone increases from 1/4 of slope height H to the double of H and the maximum disturbance factor increases from 0.5 to 1. Uniform thickness of a disturbed zone was found to yield more conservative outcomes than the triangular zones did. The critical failure surfaces were found to be shallow for high rates of disturbance decay, and they were the deepest for spatially uniform disturbance factors.