SYNOPSIS

This talk will look at the behaviour of cut highway slopes in residual soils, based on experience with cut slopes in Malaysia and Indonesia. This includes work on the Kuala Krai to Gua Musang highway and the Kuala Lumpur - Karak highway and a number of geothermal projects in Indonesia. These all involved very high cuts in residual soils.  Comments will be made the roles of visual observation versus analytical methods for assessing the stability of slopes. The usefulness (or non-usefulness) of analytical methods will be addressed in some detail, and the theoretical manner in which rainfall can affect the stability of slopes will be illustrated.  

ABOUT THE PRESENTER


Professor Dr. Laurence Wesley has an M.E. from the Auckland University, and a PhD from Imperial College, obtained under the guidance of Professor A.W. Bishop.

His work experience as a geotechnical engineer covers eight years with the Indonesian Public Works Department, five years with the New Zealand Ministry of Works, and eleven years with the Auckland consulting company, Tonkin and Taylor. Following this he spent eighteen years as a senior lecturer at Auckland University. During his time with Tonkin and Taylor he was involved in a variety of projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. The latter included foundations of buildings in Kuala Lumpur, the Sungai Layang Dam in Johore Bahru, site development at Prai, (near Penang), and the highways from Kuala Lumpur to Karak and from Kuala Krai to Gua Musang.

His special research interest has been the properties of residual and volcanic soils. Other research interests include reinforced earth, landfills, groundwater and seepage. He has published many papers on residual soils, and his recent publications include the following two text books, both published by John Wiley and Sons, New York:

I.    Fundamentals of Soil Mechanics for Sedimentary and Residual Soils 2009,
II.    Geotechnical Engineering in Residual Soils, 2010.  

This course is an abbreviated version of the material covered in the second book.