Upper-bound solution for the stability of stone-facing embankments

Anne Sophie Colas (1) , Jean Claude Morel (2) , Denis Garnier (3)

1 IFSTTAR/MAST/SDOA - Sécurité et Durabilité des Ouvrages d'Art
2 LTDS - Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes
3 navier umr 8205 - Laboratoire Navier

An upper-bound solution for stone-facing embankments is developed to assess the stability of this type of structures. The embankment is treated as a cohesionless granular material whereas the facing is considered as composed of discrete stone blocks, laid dry one on the top of the other, complying with a Mohr-Coulomb interface law. This enables the assessment of the stability of the structure, solely resorting to its geometry, unit weight, and the friction angles of the embankment and facings. The model is finally used to assess the stability of an existing rockfill dam in the Pyrénées (France). Comparison with Distinct Element Method results and parametric analyses prove the robustness of the model on this case study.

Mots clés: MASONRY FACING; DYKE; UPPER-BOUND SOLUTION

Mots clés: DIGUE; BARRAGE EN ENROCHEMENT

Domaines: Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]

Anne Sophie Colas, Jean Claude Morel, Denis Garnier. Upper-bound solution for the stability of stone-facing embankments. Materials and structures, 2016, 49 (10), pp.4279-4289. ⟨10.1617/s11527-015-0787-z⟩. ⟨hal-01366826⟩