Definitions

The following are definitions for some Computed Block Results:

• Failed: A block is considered "failed" if the Factor of Safety < Design Factor of Safety.
• Removable: The geometric removability of the block which enables it to be removed from the joint socket. See the Removability topic for more information.
• Slope Face Area: The area of the block which belongs to a free face (i.e., daylighting). Blocks which do not daylight have zero Slope Face Area.
• Required Support Pressure: The uniform passive support pressure required for the block's Factor of Safety to reach the Design Factor of Safety. Blocks which already meet the Design Factor of Safety have zero Required Support Pressure.
• Failure Depth: This is the distance from the free face of a daylighting block to the deepest joint face of the failed block (socket), measured perpendicular (normal) to the free face. In a Successive Failure analysis, the deepest joint face may belong to a different block that fails in a subsequent iteration, potentially just behind the original daylighting block, contributing to a deeper failure.



There are three possible values for failure depth:

• Zero failure depth: The block is stable or the block does not daylight
• Non-zero failure depth: As mentioned in the definition above
• N/A: The block is unstable, but no valid joint surface was found in the perpendicular direction to the free face of the block. This can occur when the opposing face is also a daylighting face (e.g., two daylighting faces are parallel to each other).
• Joint Trace Length: Represents the exposed trace length of a block's joint face as measured on the slope surface.
• Joint Persistence: Represents the maximum joint length as measured in any direction on a block's joint face.