The Rockfall embankments and walls application allows calculating some quantities useful to the professional who needs to perform a preliminary sizing of the structures. The quantities provided as output by the program are:
Penetration depth, Impact duration, Impact force of the boulder, Stress on the structure.
Reinforced earth rockfall embankments, with a trapezoidal structure, made of coarse material possibly reinforced with geogrids, serve to protect large-scale infrastructures, so much so that the longitudinal development of the structure can exceed one hundred meters with heights of 6 ÷ 8 m and a width of 10 ÷ 12 m at the base and 4 ÷ 5 m at the top. To complete the work, immediately upstream of the embankment, there is a catch ditch, a shaped excavation, which serves to slow down falling boulders and collect them.
Rigid walls, used to create an obstacle to boulders up to 2 m3, are sized like a gravity wall subjected to the dynamic action of the boulder and generally also have an upstream catch ditch. Finally, there are mixed structures in which the embankment is supported upstream by a wall or a gabion wall. In the case of an embankment, the penetration depth can be evaluated with the following relationship by Kar (1979).