THERMO-MECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STABILITY

This master thesis deals with the numerical analysis of the response of a rock cliff that presents recurrent instabilities as the results of the effect the climatic actions. Because the cliff is located above an important historic and touristic village, named La Roque Gageac, it has been recently instrumented by the French Service of Civil Works in order to detect possible forthcoming failures. At geological level, the cliff is composed by a calcareous rock created in a marine environment and with a large number of discontinuities families induced by a strong tectonic activity. The cliff studied has an approximated height of 100 meters and as principal characteristic it has a cavern that was used as a refuge during the wars, whereby there is a great interest in evaluate the risk. After the recent failure that took place in January 2010, a number of studies and field investigations were initiated with the aim to determinate the relationship between the atmospheric actions and the cliff stability. An instrumentation system was installed in the rock massif that allows to determinate the relationship between the main atmospheric actions and th