The Use of Slake Durability as an Indicator of Slope Stability of Weathered Rock

ABSTRACT: Stability of some rock slopes is often influenced by heavy rain during summer in Korea. One of the main process involved in this, is the slaking of highly weathered rock. Such change of engineering behavior due to slaking can not be easily detected by the measurement of intact rock strength only. In this study, the possibility of using slake durability as an indicator for slope stability has been sought by conducting several tests using samples from unstable slope faces. After second cycling of slaking, the durability index were often still too high but the index has been reduced further after one more cycle of slaking. This implies that it would be necessary to define the proper number of slaking cycles for better representation of slope stability. However, such change of engineering behavior can be correlated to the decrease rate of slaking durability against number of slaking cycles.