Motorway connection Bid Bid – Sur, the Sultanate of Oman

The company (JV) Astaldi – Özkar is building some 40 km long motorway section Bid Bid – Sur. The works in the construction of the motorway section include many extremely high batters (cut slope).
The area in question is composed predominantly of igneous and volcanic rocks. The rocks are weathered on the surface and very cracked, filled with gypsum. Newly excavated batters have revealed the actual situation of the cracks, filled by gypsum, which could not have been preliminarily assessed before construction. Flat slickensides are visible along the cracks.
The intact rock is relatively solid and stable; more problems are envisaged due to slips of poles/blocks of large-dimension rocks along the discontinuities which occur after excavation. Geological mapping, with a limited number of measurements of discontinuities was performed on said sites of excavation batters. The purpose of the measurements was to illustrate potential discontinuity-dependent various types of slips that can be identified in excavation batters. The collected measurements were processed by means of the Rocscience software using stereographic projection and kinematic stability assessment.

Project typeCivil engineering works: motorway sectionLocationMuscat, Sultanate of OmanSection length40,000 mInv. value€300,000,000Year(s)2011-ServicesGeological mapping – measurements of discomtinuities; preparation of kinematic model and stability assessment InvestorSultanate of Oman, Ministry of transport and communications