Bench stability in open pit mines : a methodology for jointed rock masses
The methods used to determine the overall gradients of the slopes in open pit workings aim to sufficiently eliminate all risk of failure on a scale comparable wich the pit walls. For this the slopes musc be made shallow gradual and reinforcing measures must generally be applied. Most often these consist of ensuring the drainage of the slopes and in limiting the effects of blasting (reinforcement is generally too costly in the case of very high slopes and deep planes of failure).
Use of an Integrated Discrete Fracture Network Code for Stochastic Stability Analyses of Fractured Rock Masses
The paper presents the Discrete Fracture Network code RESOBLOK, which couples geometrical block system construction and a quick iterative stability analysis in the same package. The deterministic or stochastic geometry of a fractured rock mass can be represented and interactively displayed in 3D using two different fracture generators: one mainly used for hydraulic purposes and another designed to allow block stability evaluation. RESOBLOK has downstream modules that can quickly compute stability (based on limit equilibrium or energy-based analysis), display geometric information and create links to other discrete software. The advantage of the code is that it couples stochastic geometrical representation and a quick iterative stability analysis to allow risk-analysis with or without reinforcement and, for the worst cases, more accurate analysis using stress–strain analysis computer codes. These different aspects are detailed for embankment and underground works.
Archaeological Survey of Dangoyama Kofun by 3DGPR
We presented a three-dimensional ground penetrating radar (3DGPR) system for the archeological investigation in a harsh site, where we have to deal with many trees and/or great topographic variations. This system consists of a commercial GPR system with a laser positioning system. With this system, we can move the GPR antenna freely, on which a positioning detector can record accurate position for each GPR data trace. We applied our 3DGPR system at Dangoyama Kofun, a burial mound, in Fukushima prefecture, Japan. A lot of trees and bushes covered the survey area and cannot be cut. We acquired six datasets in two days in this area. We successfully imaged the boundary between the original surface of the burial mound and the covering soil clearly at about 0.3 m depth around the mound. Furthermore, we found some strong reflections appeared at 0.8 m depth in the top area of the mound, which can be from the artificial parts of the burial mound. The results would greatly aid the following archaeological excavation. In addition, we compared the non-interpolated depth slice with interpolated depth slice at same position and demonstrated that the interpolation process on threedimensional GPR data may introduce some artifacts which might mislead our interpretation.