BRITE Synergy: Enhancing Prediction of Rock Slope Failures During Earthquakes

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Engineering characterization of geological materials is a critical and challenging endeavor, continuously evolving as new technologies are introduced. Understanding the strength and behavior of rock and soil is necessary for safe and cost-effective designs, with applications ranging from robust infrastructure (roads, buildings, dams, tunnels, etc.) to sustainable development of energy and mineral resources, all of which are essential to society. News coverage of recent failures of natural slopes and tailings dams has raised public awareness and concern across the globe. Although such disasters have significant negative consequences, study of them enables improved understanding, allowing for improved safety in the future. This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Synergy project aims to improve our ability to predict seismically induced rock slope failures so they can be addressed prior to a triggering earthquake event. Laboratory experiments will be combined with numerical simulations to enhance our ability to predict and prevent seismically-induced rock slope failures. In addition to the benefit to society via improved safety during earthquakes, the project supports the professional development and research goals of a female PI and a set of students from groups currently underrepresented in science and engineering. In particular, this project will provide the opportunity for the PI and her students to engage with new techniques and technologies as they perform the experiments and simulations and interpret the results, ranging from acoustic emissions instrumentation to hybrid finite-discrete element numerical models.The research goals will largely be accomplished via experimental work with two related thrusts: development of an improved direct shear test procedure for characterizing the shear strength of rock joint surfaces, and implementation of a suite of shake table tests to investigate the motion of rock blocks under seismic loading conditions. The associated experimental datasets will be archived and shared via the DesignSafe repository. The dataset containing the direct shear test results will allow the global rock mechanics community to more readily adopt the improved test procedure and the dataset containing yield accelerations and block displacements will provide a validation tool that will be of use to earthquake engineering researchers and practitioners worldwide. Numerical models will be used to augment the experimental datasets using continuum, discontinuum, and hybrid methods, allowing exploration of a wider variety of conditions than can be simulated in the laboratory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.