Application of Q _slope to Assess the Stability of Rock Slopes in Madrid Province, Spain

Excerpt

Geomechanical classification schemes have been employed for more than 100 years since Ritter (1879) tried to formalize an empirical approximation for the design of tunnels (Hoek 2007). These rock mass classification systems are of great help at preliminary stages of a project, when few data are available (Hoek 2007). Geomechanical classifications became more popular after the 1970s, with the establishment of Bieniawski’s Rock Mass Rating (RMR) and Barton’s Q-index (Barton et al. 1974). The main application and reason for the development of RMR and Q-index was for the pre-design of underground works such as tunnels, mines and caverns (Barton and Bieniawski 2008). The RMR classification, although initially applied to underground works, counted with correction factors for slopes and foundations (Bieniawski 1989). However, the correction factor for slopes was almost impossible to be applied due to the extreme range of correction factors and lack of factor definition in practice (Romana et al. 2015). Variations of the RMR classification have been applied to slopes, such as the Mining Rock Mass Rating (MRMR) classification for mining slopes (Laubscher 1990) or the Slope Mass Rating (SMR) for civil engineering slopes (Romana 1985); these are probably the most utilized in practice. …