Current version:
v7.2 (7.20.x.01)
3 June 2019
GALENA is a trademark and registrered trademark of Clover Associates Pty Ltd
GALENA - for Slope Stability Analyses, on Earth & beyond

Features - Civil Engineering Modelling

Although GALENA was originally designed for use within mining-related situations many of the unique features introduced and only available within GALENA have been found to be very useful when considering slope stability within broader civil and geotechnical engineering situations.

GALENA allows you to define geology or slope makeup as it exists or will exist, without first defining the slope surface, thus providing for rapid assessment of design options.

What this means is that the slope surface is entirely independent of the material profiles (profiles define geology or material layers), and can be moved, modified or re-positioned without changing, moving or re-defining the material profiles.

This unique feature also means that you save time by not having to re-define or change your material layers every time you want to change the slope surface, which is the way it should be...
...Stability analysis shouldn't be an uphill battle!

The image below shows a complex dam with a clay core.  The water conditions are modelled with a phreatic surface (shown as a blue dashed line) that defines the water level behind the dam and within the dam structure, and controls the pore-water pressures within the weathered sandstone and clay layers.

In this particular case the downstream face is to be analysed for a ‘dam full’ scenario.
 
Complex dam situations can be simply modelled

It should be noted that with GALENA both the upstream face and downstream face of the dam can be analysed using the one model, simply by defining the failure surface appropriately - there is no need to ‘flip’ the model over to analyse the two faces.

The image below shows the upstream face is to be analysed for a ‘dam full’ scenario.
 
Complex dam situations can be simply modelled

The image below shows a model of a slope where the ground level is to be raised above the existing ‘Silty to Clayey Gravel’ level to provide a level area within the confines of the available ground area...  a gravity retaining wall is proposed to be included to achieve the lift in ground level.

The original slope surface is shown in the image as a black solid line, and analysis determined the Factor of Safety for the original slope to be above 2.0

The material profile defining the ‘Gravel’ is redefined (from a two-point horizontal line above the slope) to follow the slope surface, with an excavated pad for the wall.  The concrete retaining wall is modelled with a material profile defined as a closed polygon (shown in red in the image), and the wall backfill is defined by the profile above the slope.
 
Complex dam situations can be simply modelled

Once definition of the material profiles is complete the slope surface can be redefined to match the outer face of the retaining wall and the upper surface of the wall backfill, together with the failure surface position, as shown in the image below.
 
The lowest FoS failure surfaces are colour-coded according to the FoS result for each

The analysis result image for this model is shown below - the Factor of Safety was found to be satisfactory, thereby allowing more detailed studies to proceed (e.g. loadings and groundwater positions).
 
The lowest FoS failure surfaces are colour-coded according to the FoS result for each
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Updated: 14 June 2022