Thermo-Mechanical Cliff Stability at Tomb KV42 in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Alcaino-Olivares, Rodrigo; Perras, Matthew A.; Ziegler, Martin; Leith, Kerry

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60196-6_38

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In particular, the use of standard testing procedures (international or other) should be well documented in future testing programs. To the authors' knowledge, this study presents the first documentation of thermal properties and critical crack threshold (i.e., CC and CI) for the KV, and data of these properties could be used in the study of environmental fluctuations inside tombs with rock wall cracking in the KV, such as the continuing research carried out by Alcaino-Olivares et al [13], Hemeda [23] and Khalil [76].…”

Section: Quality Of Reported Data and Overall Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Therefore, the integration of different loads and strength-degradating factors to anisotropic rocks could provide a more realistic assessment of the stability of the rock masses. Such considerations are necessary in real-world scenarios, such as the study of the decorated tombs in the Theban Necropolis [6,21], the stability of cliffs surrounding the KV [13], and other sites worldwide [92][93][94]. Future testing should include both the petrophysical and mechanical properties, with particular attention paid to degree of weathering, clay minerology and its influence on swelling, as well as anisotropic and thermal influences.…”

Section: Petrophysical and Mechanical Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, a joint geological team aids the Kings' Valley Project and comprises members from York University (Toronto, ON, Canada), ETH Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland) and South Valley University (Qena, Egypt). Our team assessed the current condition of the cliffs around the valley to determine their stability, triggering agents for rock falls, and (in particular) the effect of climatic conditions on the evolution of rock damage in subvertical cliffs of marlstone and limestone belonging to Member I of the Thebes Limestone Formation [13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rock Mechanical Laboratory Testing of Thebes Limestone Formation (Member I), Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt

et al. 2022

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The Thebes Limestone Formation of Lower Eocene age is one of the most extensive rock units in Egypt. It is of importance to the apogee of the ancient Egyptian civilization, particularly in Luxor (South-Central Egypt), where the rock formation hosts the Theban Necropolis, a group of funerary chambers and temples from the New Kingdom Egyptian era (3500–3000 BP). In this work, we investigated the petrophysical and rock mechanical properties (e.g., rock strength, critical crack stress thresholds) through laboratory tests on eleven rock blocks collected from one area within the Theban Necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings (KV). The blocks belong to Member I of the Thebes Limestone Formation, including six blocks of marly limestone, three blocks of micritic limestone, one block of argillaceous limestone from the Upper Esna Shale Formation, and one block of silicified limestone of unknown origin. Special attention was given to the orientation of bedding planes in the samples: tests were conducted in parallel (PA) and perpendicular (PE) configurations with respect to bedding planes. We found that the marly limestone had an average unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of 30 MPa and 39 MPa for the PA and PE tests, respectively. Similarly, the micritic limestone tests showed an average UCS of 24 MPa for the PA orientation and 58 MPa for the PE orientation. The critical crack thresholds were the first ever reported for Member I, as measured with strain gauge readings. The average crack initiation (CI) stress thresholds for the marly limestone (PA: 14 MPa) and the micritic limestone (PA: 11 MPa; PE: 24 MPa) fall within the typical ratio of CI to UCS (0.36–0.52). The micritic limestone had an average Young’s modulus (E) of 19.5 GPa and 10.3 GPa for PA and PE, respectively. The Poisson’s ratios were 0.2 for PA and 0.1 for PE on average. Both marly and micritic limestone can be characterised by a transverse isotropic strength behaviour with respect to bedding planes. The failure strength for intact anisotropic rocks depends on the orientation of the applied force, which must be considered when assessing the stability of tombs and cliffs in the KV and will be used to understand and improve the preservation of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Section: Quality Of Reported Data and Overall Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Petrophysical and Mechanical Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rock Mechanical Laboratory Testing of Thebes Limestone Formation (Member I), Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt

et al. 2022

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“…The increasing interest in thermally-induced effects on jointed rock masses [17,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] requires an improvement in the techniques for temperature field analysis to integrate traditional direct contact methods [14,42]. In this sense, IRT surveys support the quantitative study of surface temperature fields over rock slopes, deriving distributed maps at their external interface.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Thermal Monitoring of Jointed Rock Masses through Infrared Thermography and Photogrammetry

et al. 2021

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The study of strain effects in thermally-forced rock masses has gathered growing interest from engineering geology researchers in the last decade. In this framework, digital photogrammetry and infrared thermography have become two of the most exploited remote surveying techniques in engineering geology applications because they can provide useful information concerning geomechanical and thermal conditions of these complex natural systems where the mechanical role of joints cannot be neglected. In this paper, a methodology is proposed for generating point clouds of rock masses prone to failure, combining the high geometric accuracy of RGB optical images and the thermal information derived by infrared thermography surveys. Multiple 3D thermal point clouds and a high-resolution RGB point cloud were separately generated and co-registered by acquiring thermograms at different times of the day and in different seasons using commercial software for Structure from Motion and point cloud analysis. Temperature attributes of thermal point clouds were merged with the reference high-resolution optical point cloud to obtain a composite 3D model storing accurate geometric information and multitemporal surface temperature distributions. The quality of merged point clouds was evaluated by comparing temperature distributions derived by 2D thermograms and 3D thermal models, with a view to estimating their accuracy in describing surface thermal fields. Moreover, a preliminary attempt was made to test the feasibility of this approach in investigating the thermal behavior of complex natural systems such as jointed rock masses by analyzing the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of surface temperature ranges under different climatic conditions. The obtained results show that despite the low resolution of the IR sensor, the geometric accuracy and the correspondence between 2D and 3D temperature measurements are high enough to consider 3D thermal point clouds suitable to describe surface temperature distributions and adequate for monitoring purposes of jointed rock mass.

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“…Most of these floods occurred in October, commonly the wettest month of the year. Finally, the hot desert climate (classified as BWh: B(arid), W(desert), h(hot), according to the Köppen (1936) climate classification; cf., Alcaíno-Olivares et al 2020) with its daily and annual temperature cycles of considerable amplitudes contributes to the rock mass deterioration.…”

Section: Geological and Morphological Setting Of The Valley Of The Kingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rockfall susceptibility and runout in the Valley of the Kings

et al. 2021

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The UNESCO world heritage site Valley of the Kings or Wadi el-Moluk (وادي الملوك) near Luxor, Egypt, hosts unique burial places of Egyptian kings and royals from the New Kingdom (c. 1539–1075 BCE) and attracts about 0.5 to 2 million tourists per year. Very steep to subvertical cliffs of Thebes Limestone surround the Valley of the Kings. The rock mass is cut by frequent joints and faults making the cliff walls prone to rockfalls. However, only few rockfall debris are found in the valley, likely due to natural remobilisation by flood events and artificial clearings and excavation works that rendered the natural debris cover over the millennia. This work focuses on rockfall susceptibility and runout and makes use of new high-resolution landscape surface models utilising terrestrial laser scanning. We investigated rockfall release areas by exploring rock mass fractures at 23 cliff segments and analysed the kinematics of potential rockfalls. Furthermore, we estimated potential rockfall deposition areas with CONEFALL supported by nine numerical simulations of single rockfall events using Rockyfor3D. We found that nearly 4500 m2 (26%) of the public walking paths and 24 out of 64 tomb entrance areas locate within potential rockfall runout zones.

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Thermo-Mechanical Cliff Stability at Tomb KV42 in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Cited by 7 publications

References 8 publications

Rock Mechanical Laboratory Testing of Thebes Limestone Formation (Member I), Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt

Rock Mechanical Laboratory Testing of Thebes Limestone Formation (Member I), Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt

3D Thermal Monitoring of Jointed Rock Masses through Infrared Thermography and Photogrammetry

Rockfall susceptibility and runout in the Valley of the Kings

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