ABSTRACT
This paper aims to show the results of a methodology used in the analysis of rock slopes in terms of wedge failures based on assumed new surfaces in the excavation direction that links a well-developed database structure, visual representations, basic limit equilibrium analysis and statistical analyses. The method presented here is intended to clarify the complexity of the structure of rock slopes that include wedge blocks in the first step of the model. The structural data analyses used here consist of a series of sorting and filtering processes for which the raw data are derived from scan-line surveys in this step. In the second step, visual representations, spatial variability, size distributions. The last step of the developed model includes Monte Carlo simulation (MCs), which is devoted to assessing the instabilities of rock slopes based on actual and planned new excavation surfaces, which are named the Hypothetical Excavation Surfaces (HES) of the rock slopes. The developed model has been tested on a highway slope as a field experiment. The experimental slope has seemed to be unstable during an assumed excavation according to the results of the analyses.
