DIPANALYST: A computer program for quantitative kinematic analysis of rock slope failures

Kinematic analysis is used to analyze the potential for the various modes of structurally controlled rock slope failures (plane, wedge, and toppling failures) due to the presence of unfavorably oriented discontinuities. Traditionally kinematic analysis is performed after plotting discontinuity orientations, slope angle, slope azimuth and representative friction angle value on a stereonet. Due to large number of discontinuities, only representative orientation values (dip/dip direction) for identified cluster sets are considered. This stereonet-based analysis is qualitative in nature and requires the presence of tight data clusters for which a reasonable representative orientation value can be assigned. However, there are cases when a tight circular clustering of discontinuity orientations does not exist, making stereonet-based analysis unreliable. Also, variability of discontinuity data in cluster sets is not easy to consider using the stereonet-based method. To overcome these problems, an application software, DIPANALYST, has been developed by the first author to perform quantitative kinematic analysis based on not just representative discontinuity values, but all discontinuities and their possible intersections. The software calculates ratios of discontinuities or their possible intersections that can potentially cause failures (plane, wedge or toppling) to the total number of discontinuities or their possible intersections. The calculated ratios are known as failure indices, and the method is termed as the quantitative approach for kinematic analysis. DIPANALYST is also capable of performing the traditional stereonet-based method. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.