Impact actions on rockfall protection barrier

Rockfall hazards have always been an issue in mountainous areas. To mitigate these hazards, efforts have been put in to building rockfall protection barriers. The erection of barriers in mountainous areas can often be difficult and costly when piling is required. This research explores the viability of building barriers without foundation. This type of barrier will experience rocking when subject to impact. A rocking barrier relies solely on inertial resistance to resist impact. An advantage of a rocking barrier is that the barrier itself experiences significantly less stress compared to a cantilever wall. Closed-form expressions have been developed and validated by the use of Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis and experimentations. Closed-form expressions enable users to predict the horizontal displacement of the wall by hand calculations.