Rock Slope Engineering - The Industry Dictates the Approach

摘要

There are significant differences in how the geological engineering practitioner approaches rock slope design, depending on industry catered to. The differences are dictated more by economics than by training. Practitioners employed in the mining industry design open pit mine slopes with the primary intent of optimizing ore extraction while minimizing risk to critical mine infrastructure. Practitioners in the transportation industry design highway rock slopes with risk to public safety and commerce in mind, usually with quite limited funding. Practitioners in the building/development industry also tend to work with limited funding and are often pushed into making high risk decisions based upon limited engineering geologic information. Although the concepts of "risk" and "value" are shared by the respective industries, each industry's perception of "risk" and what objects possess tangible "value" are often quite different. As a result, there are differing views on what constitutes a comprehensive rock slope site investigation and design program. Convincing industry managers to increase expenditures on site investigations and quality design is, at best, a difficult task when "cost" and "risk" cannot be reliably quantified. On one hand, mine managers are quite willing to justify long-term, rigorous engineering geologic site investigations when the cost is offset by relatively large profits. On the other hand, practitioners within the transportation industry must struggle with the trade-offs between overall project costs and potential impacts on public safety. The industry-dependent perceptions of "risk" and "cost", as related to rock mass characterization and rock slope design, are highlighted by specific examples at an open pit copper mine in Nevada and a condominium development in Connecticut.