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ABSTRACT: The present work demonstrates the stability analysis of a cut slope in Jhakri
area, Himachal Pradesh, India. The recent developments along the left bank of Sutlej valley
have witnessed various activities such as widening of road, human settlement and hydro-
power projects. These actions have left the National Highway 22 very unfavorable from rock
slope instability problem. In this paper, an attempt has been made through kinematic analysis
and finite element simulation to understand the failure mechanism of vulnerable slope with
highly jointed rock mass. The study provides an illustration that the slope is unstable because
of intersecting joints with unfavorable attitude and stress accumulation at the toe region.
1 INTRODUCTION
Himalayan region comprises one of the largest active mountain chain on the earth with
young, immature and undulating topography with diverse monsoonal season. The fragile and
highly deformed nature of rocks has turned this region to be most vulnerable towards differ-
ent types of slope failures (Sarkar et al. 1995, Chauhan et al. 2010, Pal et al. 2012, Singh et al.
2014). The current advances along the left bank of Sutlej valley around Jhakri area, Shimla
in Himachal Pradesh, India has led to various activities such as widening of road, human
settlement and expansion of hydropower projects. Lack of geological and geotechnical inves-
tigation prior to engineering constructions has created stability problem along the road. Due
to these unscientific design methods, stress disequilibrium has set up resulting in slope failure
in study area. The collapse of slope puts human life in grave danger as well as spawns huge
economic loss. The failed rock masses possess serious disruption in communication in the
Rampur-Jhakri region especially in the monsoonal season (Sarkar & Singh, 2008a, b, Singh
et al. 2013). The present study deals with a road cut slope in Jhakri area, Himachal Pradesh,
India, along Tibet Border Road, National Highway (NH) 22. An integrated approach of
structural analysis and numerical simulation through Finite Element Method (FEM) has
been implemented to identify potentially vulnerable slopes and to get an insight about defor-
mational mechanism of the area.
457
C
Cr =
F (1)
tan Φ
tan(Φr) =
F (2)
where C is the cohesion, Φ is the angle of internal friction, Cr and Φr are the reduced shear
strength parameters and F is the shear strength reduction factor.
Table 1. Orientation data of the cut slope used for kinematic analysis.
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Figure 2. Kinematic analysis (a) showing wedge failure in two directions. One towards 70 and another
towards 6. (b) Direct toppling towards 79. (c) Planner failure towards 79. (d) Represents joint alignment
and two wedges, wedge 1 at higher inclination and wedge 2 at lower inclination.
460
Figure 4. (a) Distance from top to toe along the slope surface vs. Differential Stress graph, represent-
ing an increasing trend of Differential Stress towards the toe of the slope. (b) Distance from top to toe
along the slope surface vs. Total Displacement, showing maximum displacement at the toe portion
where deformation contour is protruding (Fig. 3a).
4 CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, road-cut slope along National Highway (NH) 22 in Jhakri region has
been investigated for stability analysis using kinematic method and numerical FEM tech-
niques. The rockmass shows high concentration of stress providing some signal for yielding,
if present pace of excavation is continued. The factor of safety obtained using FEM method
is 1.22, which indicates that the road cut slope is unstable. It is also observed that the failure
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