Can geotechnical engineers predict where falling rocks will go?
Soil System Sciences (SSS)
Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS)
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Rockfalls can cause serious damage to people and infrastructure. To design useful protection measures, it is important to understand what happens during a rockfall and where any rocks might go. At Boise State University in the US, geotechnical engineer Professor Nick Hudyma and his team, including PhD student Grant Goertzen, are throwing rocks down slopes to initiate artificial rockfalls. These experiments will allow them to create computer simulations that model how real rockfalls might occur.
This brochure introduces Nick and Grant's work, offers an insight into careers in geotechnical engineering, contains interviews with Nick and Grant and includes an activity sheet that challenges students to conduct their own engineering experiment to calculate the coefficient of restitution of different objects.