LAB 4C: PLANE AND WEDGE FACTOR OF SAFETY

OBJECTIVE

To identify which discontinuities are potential to fail and calculate the factor of safety.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

i. Students should able to calculate the safety factor for plane failure.
ii. Students should able to calculate the safety factor for wedge failure.

THEORY

To obtain the factor of safety for planar is much simple rather than wedge. For plane,
consideration on one discontinuity, besides wedge two discontinuities (sets). Two (2)
conditions need to exam, wet and dry conditions.

EQUIMENT AND MATERIALS

i. Equal-area equatorial net (Appendix C)

ii. Tracing paper

PROCEDURE

 Determine the mode of failures

 Used appropriate formula of planar or wedge given in APPENDIX A and B
 The other information/properties from the site study and laboratory works are given a
following: -
i. Rock unit weight, 𝛾𝑟 = 25𝑘𝑁/𝑚3
ii. Rock friction angle, ∅ = ∅𝑎 = ∅𝑏 = 30°
iii. Water unit weight, 𝛾𝑤 = 9.81𝑘𝑁/𝑚3
iv. Cohesion of discontinuities, 𝐶𝑎 = 𝐶𝑏 = 50 𝑘𝑃𝑎
v. Height of slope = Height of wedge = Height of plane, 𝐻 = 50𝑚
 vi. Tension crack depth, Z = Tension crack height, 𝑍𝑤 = 1 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟
vii. Upper slope data = 100° (dip direction) and 20° (dip angle)
viii. Inclined angle of anchor (Ω) = (ψT) = 20°
ix. Bars for Y25 = 10 ton = 100 kN
RESULT AND ANALYSIS

i. Factor of safety of plane failure in wet and dry condition

ii. No of bars required to reinforced the plane failure
iii. Factor of safety of wedge failure in wet and dry condition

QUESTION AND DISCUSSION

i. For some cases, give the recommended value of safety factors for the rock slope in civil
engineering construction industry with some justifications.

Factor of Safety (FOS)

FOS value is 1.3 to 1.5, however based on engineering judgement, value outside of this
range may be appropriate, depending on the circumstances. The minimum FOS to be
used in stability analysis for a specific rock slopes depends on factor such as:
 The level of investigation and data collection
 Cost of constructing the slope to be more stable.
 Whether the slope is temporary or permanent.
 Cost, risk to be travelling with public, consequences should the slope fail.
 The degree of uncertainty in the stability analysis inputs the most important being
the amount intact rock, rock mass strength, discontinuity spacing, discontinuity
shear strength and groundwater condition.

2. Describe and explain the rock slope stabilization method.

i. excavation and filling technique
Include excavating of earth flow until successive result in a stable slope, removing
and replacing failed material with lighter more stable materials, or recompacted,
excavating the upload upper portions of a mass failure and filling to load the load
the lower portions of a mass failure.

ii. drainage technique

Include effort to remove surface water, drainage of tension cracks, using rock fill
underlain by filter cloth to prevent upward migration of water into the road prism,
intersection of trench drain and so on.
 iii. restraining structure
Include retaining wall, piles, buttresses, counter weight fill, cribs, bin wall
reinforced earth, and pile stressed or post tensioned soil or rock anchors,
organizations such as highway departments and railroads have developed charts
and table giving earth pressure of the design of retaining wall that requires a
minimum if computation. Nearly these charts and table are based on Rankine
formula.

iv. miscellaneous techniques

Grouting can be used to reduce soil permeability. There by prevent the ingress of
groundwater into failure zone. Chemical stabilization, generally in the form of
exchanged method, is accomplished by high pressure injection of specification
exchange solution into failure zone or into closely spaced predrilled holes
throughout the movement zone. Suppression of natural electro osmosis can be used
to reduce unfavorable ground water pressure blasting to sometime to disrupt failure
surface and to improve drainage.

3. Explain the main differences about the assessment of the Rock Slope and Soil Slope.
Finer details of landscape are usually determined by differential erosion for example
strata provide rocks layers dipping away radially from central hight point, differential
erosion produces inward facing (O) outward-facing develops (D) and radial strike
valleys (SV)
i. Strength and Stress
Ability to resist being moved by erosional processes, which normally operate in a
downslope direction. The forces exerted by erosional processes is a shear stress
directed downslope and causing a mass of rock soil to shear over the under-laying
material.
ii. Controls of Soil Characteristic
The characteristic of soil depends on, porent materials, climate, vegetation, slope
 potent material influences
 the rate of soil development
 soil composition shales produce a lot of clay, sandstone produces sandy soil
CONCLUSION

Failure can occur if single discontinuity is present or a series of discontinuity form a

single plane to initiate failure in a slope for plane failure. This failure can be considered as an
unstable block of weight resting on a plane surface which is inclined at an angle ∅ to the slope
angle. The factor of safety (FOS) is defined under limit equilibrium method as ratio of shear
strength of shear stress.