Yossef H Hatzor

In this paper the structural stability of the roof in two historic monuments excavated underground in different dimensions and rock types is discussed. An emphasis is made on stability analysis of roofs excavated in bedded and jointed rocks, referred to as laminated Voussoir beams. It is shown that the significance of joint friction, spacing, and orientation can not be overlooked because these factors dictate roof stability. For accurate modeling of such a problem numerical methods must be employed. In this chapter the power of numerical discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) method is demonstrated.