PROBABILITY ANALYSIS OF KEY BLOCKS FOR HIGH SLOPE OF PERMANENT SHIPLOCK AT THE THREE-GORGES DAM SITE IN CHINA

The granitic rock mass existing in shiplock zone of the Three Gorges dam contains a number of major discontinuities,of them one hundred and thirty three major discontinuities have been mapped around the shiplock covering an area of 1740600m.These major discontinuities were analyzed by using block theory.However,it is important to keep in mind that discontinuities are finite and some key blocks are actually infinite blocks.In this paper,a stochastic model is incorporated into the key block theory to study the slide probability of key blocks on the high slope of the Three-Gorges of the Yangtze River,and the size and density distribution of blocks are also analyzed.The results provide a theoretical basis for the reinforcement of the high slope on the Three-Gorges of the Yangtze River and are of great significance in engineering practice.