CREEP IN THE MANNEN

ABSTRACT:
INTRODUCTION:
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2014/11/04/mount-mannen-rockslide1/
http://www.ngu.no/upload/Publikasjoner/Rapporter/2014/2014_031.pdf
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/18706/1/18706.pdf
1.1Mount Mannen is a unstable rock slope 1215 m above Rnningen in
the Romsdal Valley located in Norway. It has the potential of creating a
rock avalanche of 2-20 million m3 with catastrophic consequences for
houses and infrastructure in the valley, in particular as a landslide dam
may be formed, including upstream and downstream flooding. The
rockslide behaved in unpredictable manner. The bedrock consists of

Proterozoic sillimanite-bearing gneisses with inherited structural weaknesses

from the tectonic deformation. Specifically, the metamorphic foliation surfaces
are prone to be reactivated where favorable orientation occurs in regards to
the gravitational forces (Saintot et al. 2011)

1.2 Creep is name applied to slow deformation of solids under small

loads acing over long periods of time.
1.2.1 stages of creep
Creep in rocks is epressed as a function of strain and time . general
form of creep function can be expressed as /Jaeger and Cook 1976/:
= 1(t) + v2t + 3 (t)
where, is the total creep strain; 1(t) is the primary or transient creep,
v2t the secondary or steadystate creep, and 3(t) the tertiary creep or
accelerating creep which occurs just prior to failure of the sample. The
general form of these three stages is illustrated in Figure 1-1.

Fig 1.1five components of a constant load test in strain time space

Ref: http://maps.unomaha.edu/Maher/GEOL3300/week6/rheology.html

elastic response: immediate and recoverable.

primary creep: decelerating strain rate.
secondary creep: constant strain rate (viscous behavior).
tertiary creep: accelerating strain rate that leads to failure.
brittle failure.

1.2.2 Empirical creep functions The most common empirical creep functions are
the

power law:

=B t n

0<n<1

and the logarithmic creep function:

= A ln t
in which A and B are constants . All empirical creep functions can be shown to be
related if they are expressed in terms of creep strain rate
=C t M
0M1
Steady state secondary creep corresponds to M = 0 and & = C = constant. If 0
< M < 1, the power law creep function (Equation 1-2) is obtained. M = 1 gives
the logarithmic law (Equation 1-3). Values for M less than zero imply tertiary
creep.
1.2.3 Rheological models
The simple rheological creep model is Kelvin model it considers spring and
dashpot in parallel , mainly used for modeling primary creep and time
recoverable deformation .This model works on time frames of thousands of years
for earthly deformation conditions

1e
=

tK /

where s is the stress and t is time. K is the spring constant and h is the dashpot
viscosity. Note that the Kelvin model does not include any plasticity: some time
after the load has been removed the strain will be fully recovered.