The Stability of Underwater Rock Slope by wave impaction

Abstract:

With the constructions of large-scale reservoir projects, the problems of the stabilities of the reservoir banks have been becoming the research focus. To investigate the stability and failure mechanism of underwater rock slopes subjected to wave impactions, a finite element program Ansys was used to model and analyze some types of underwater rock slopes according to general rock structural types.Wave impaction tests were also conducted on two rock slope models with different angles in a wave tank which generated similar regular waves as those in three-gorge reservoir. By analyzing and comparing the results of the model tests and numerical simulations, three zones were divided to the rock slopes close to the water with stress changing similarly in each zone. The results show stress concentration occurs to the slope toe, where failure begins. Plastic zone develops upwards along the discontinuity, which is different from the downward failure mode happened to general slopes. It’s also concluded that the effect of the wave on the slope discontinuity decreases with the slope angle.