Introduction
About This App
This application simulates the process of a geotechnical site investigation and stability analysis. In this app, you can drill boreholes, interpret stratigraphy, and conduct stability analyses. The model samples a synthetic geology, designed to mimic a simplified geological setting, with statistically calibrated parameter variability.
A landslide has been observed and monitored near a roadway in Chalaix, France (red boundary in map in Step 1). In this app, your objective is to evaluate the potential for larger landslides. The larger landslides could impact the entire investigation domain (green square - Step 1). The scinareo is loosely based on a real landslide (Bièvre, 2018). The purpose of this app is to help build an understanding of how people conduct geotechnical site investigations, interpret results, and use them in a Limit Equilibrium slope stability calculation. If you are familiar with geotechnical investigation, feel free to scroll down to the site map and get started. For more information on my motivation, and objectives with this project please consult my research blog post here. For an introduction to the terms and concepts this app draws upon, see my introductory blog post here.The Workflow
This simulator walks you through a toy geotechnical workflow:
Review the map of the landslide area, consult street, topographic, or satelite image views and build an understanding of the physical setting. Select locations to drill investigative boreholes, and view the results. In this app, we have a magical site investigation technique that directly samples the parameters we will need to later calculate the stability of the slope.
Draw cross-section lines across your investigation area to visualize the subsurface and topography. View your boreholes projected to your cross section, and interpret the subsurface geology by drawing soil layer boundaries and water table levels to create a geological model for later stability analyisis.
View the distribution of geotechnical parameters sampled in your boreholes (cohesion, friction angle, unit weight) from each soil layer. These parameters feed the calculations of stability that is the end goal of this process.
Explore your site investigation data in three dimensions. Visualize borehole locations, soil layers, and topography to gain a comprehensive understanding of the subsurface conditions.
Perform slope stability analysis using 2D Limit Equilibrium method. Define a search area for potential failure surfaces and calculate factors of safety to assess the stability of the slope.
Note: To facilitate my study of how people engage in geotechnical analysis, this website will anonymously log information like how long you use certain tools, where you place boreholes, and how you interpret stratigraphy on the cross sections. Your data will not be saved unless you explictly choose to submit the data using the form at the bottom of the webpage.
Step 1 — Plan and Conduct a Site Investigation
Click the map to add a borehole. Consult the borehole manager to change the depth, execute "drilling" of the borehole, and view results. Draft boreholes can be moved and dragged. Once drilled, boreholes can't be undrilled.
Borehole Manager
No boreholes added yet.
No boreholes yet. To add a borehole, click the map.
Confirm Drilling
Drill borehole at depth m?
Step 2 — Cross Section
Activate the button "Draw Section Line", then scroll up to the map to place the two ends of your line by clicking points. The ends of your section line can be adjusted by clicking and dragging the nodes. Click Show Cross Section once to activate it; after that, it updates automatically as you change the location or add new boreholes.
Cross Section Manager
No section line defined.
Step 3 — Parameter Selection
Review the distribution of sampled parameters for each layer. Drag the slider to select an appropriate value to use for stability calculations. Click "Get Parameters" to initialize the selector. If you drill new boreholes, the plots will automatically update.
Step 4 — 3D Visualization
Step 5 — Stability Analysis
Material Parameters
Please consider sharing your data, and (optionally) answering some questions. You can download the data to see what is being collected.