Stability Evaluation of Current Road-cut Slopes in Lesser & Greater Himalaya using LEM Numerical Simulation

Too steep and too tall Road-cut slopes excavated at many places in the Lesser and Greater Himalaya were found to hazardous during a recently carried out field investigating visit. Five commonly observed failures were recognized in the field. Of these, two most commonly observed failure modes-too high, too tall and too steep slopes made in highly weathered Phyllitic rock and in conglomerate were, analysed using LEM technique on Slide software. The results of numerical simulations revealed that these slopes are unstable and the findings were also matching with work carried out by other workers as well.

Surprisingly, during all along the instant field trip, at no places these slopes were treated with remediating measures. It seems that the road-cut slopes are being excavated without carrying out detailed geotechnical investigation. The in-appropriate geometries observed in the field, thus, further weaken the cut slopes and may lead to failure of uphill.