Rock slope discontinuity extraction and stability analysis from 3D point clouds: application to an urban rock slope

This paper presents an application of a recently developed methodology for the identification and analysis of flat surfaces affecting rock masses using 3D LiDAR point clouds(Riquelme et al., 2013 submited). The used methodology has been applied to calculate the algebraic equations of the different discontinuities of a rock slope through a methodology based on next three steps: (a) local curvature calculation; (b) statistical analysis of the poles and (c) clustering analysis. Once the discontinuities have been identified, their orientations have been employed for evaluating the local stability of different failure mechanisms (wedge and planar) through a classical kinematic analysis.