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Slope stability assessment and design of remedial measures for Tungnath Temple at Uttarakhand, India: a case study

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Abstract

The present paper assesses the slope stability of the Tungnath Temple at Rudraprayag District, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and suggests the remedial measures. The temple is made of stone masonry and is believed to be over 1000 years old. Recently, signs of distress such as the development and subsequent widening of the cracks were observed on the walls of the temple. The field investigation reveals that the inadequate stability of the site, stagnation of water at the foundation level of the temple and poor drainage of the rainwater from the upper hill are the primary causes of distress for the temple. The factor of safety (FoS) values computed using the limit equilibrium method indicate that the site is marginally stable (FoS—0.8 to 1.0) under static condition and unstable (FoS—0.6 to 0.9) under the pseudo-static condition for a particular section. Thus, suitable control measures have been proposed to ensure the long-term stability of the site. The proposed control measures include the construction of a geosynthetic lined drain at critical locations and geosynthetic lining in the periphery of the temple to prevent the ingress of water. Additionally, the construction of two levels of gabion wall (6 m to 8 m high) at the periphery of the site has been proposed to improve the stability. The paper discusses the possible causes of the cracks, slope stability analysis and subsequently present the design details of the remedial measures for the long-term stability of the temple.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Director, CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee for granting permission to publish the paper. The authors gratefully acknowledge Uttarakhand Infrastructure Development, Govt. of Uttarakhand for sponsoring the project.  The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable time and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geotechnical Engineering Group, CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee-247 667, India & Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi, India

    M. Samanta, S. Sarkar, A. Dwivedi & M. Sharma

  2. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, 2007, Australia

    P. Punetha

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  1. M. Samanta
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  2. P. Punetha
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  3. S. Sarkar
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  4. A. Dwivedi
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Correspondence to M. Samanta.

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Samanta, M., Punetha, P., Sarkar, S. et al. Slope stability assessment and design of remedial measures for Tungnath Temple at Uttarakhand, India: a case study. Nat Hazards 96, 225–246 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3538-y

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