Rockfall protection embankment

A rockfall protection embankment is an earthwork built in elevation with respect to the ground to intercept falling rock fragments before elements at risk such as roads and buildings are reached.

[2] They are intended for rockfalls with kinetic energies up to tens of megajoules and are preferred over flexible barriers when the design impact is higher than 5000 kJ.

[3] Their declared advantages over other passive rockfall mitigation structures are low maintenance costs and reduced visual impact.

Embankments may in particular differ by their cross-section shape and by their constitutive materials, such as rockery, geotextiles, geogrids, recycled tires, wire mesh or gabion cages.

[3] In addition to issues related to rockfall trajectory control and classical geotechnical issues (e.g. external stability), rockfall protection embankments are designed to withstand the localized dynamic loading resulting from the interception of the fast-moving boulders (rock fragments with up to tens of tons mass sometimes exceeding 30 metres per second (70 mph) in translational velocity).