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 - Material Strength Criteria

GALENA includes a range of material strength models, to provide you with the ability to effectively and efficiently model both soil and rock slopes and combinations of both, all in the one program.

In addition, GALENA allows material properties to be defined for both Unsaturated and Saturated conditions.

GALENA allows you to define material strength using:

  • Mohr-Coulomb material strength criteria (defined in terms of cohesion and angle of shearing resistance (c/phi)).
  • Mohr-Coulomb material strength criteria with cohesion increasing with depth (according to Skempton's relationship for cohesive soils).
  • Anisotropic Mohr-Coulomb material strength criteria based on an elliptical relationship.
  • Anisotropic Mohr-Coulomb material strength criteria using defined angular ranges.
  • Hoek-Brown material strength criteria (defined in terms of m, s, and UCS).
  • Shear/normal (stress) relationships (data representing linear, curvi-linear, or similar relationships can be entered or imported).

These criteria can be used can be used with any of the the three methods of stability analysis within GALENA, and can all be used within the one model, thereby allowing comprehensive stability assessments of both soil and rock slopes.

Material properties can also be defined for slice boundaries when using the Sarma method of analysis in GALENA, thereby allowing you to model discontinuities and/or joints that may have properties different to those of the surrounding materials.  You can of course choose not to define material properties for slice boundaries and simply leave it to GALENA to automatically determine slice boundary properties from surrounding materials.

GALENA includes tables and Tools functions to assist with estimation of material properties for cohesive and non-cohesive soils, according to published data and information.

Tables and Tools functions are also included that enable you to determine RMR (Rock Mass Rating) from input parameters according to Bieniawski.  Calculated or entered RMR values can also be used to calculate suggested strengths based on the works of various published authors.
 

The image below shows the results of an analysis of a proposed earthen retaining structure where the Factor of Safety was found to be unacceptable due to the nature of the existing foundation materials.

Note the distortion of the failure surface that has occured as a result of Restraints applied to an initially-defined circular failure surface - GALENA can generate and analyse non-circular failure surfaces from defined/input circular failure surfaces.
 
The dam structure is likely to fail through the weak clay base

The image below shows the analysis results after Stone Columns (reinforcement) were included within the foundation for the same structure - a significant improvement in the Factor of Safety was noted that provided an impetus to the feasibility study for the proposed structure.
 
However, when the base is reinforced with stone columns the FoS is found to be greatly improved
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Updated: 14 June 2022