Rockfall Mitigation for Highway in Vietnam: A Case Study on the Hoang Sa Road, Da Nang City

This paper presents a study on mitigating the impacts of rockfall on the Hoang Sa road, a coastal route to Son Tra peninsula, Da Nang city. Son Tra peninsula is very well-known for tourist attraction places. The Hoang Sa road is located in mountainous terrain. Rockfall events had occurred along this highway several times in the past. As a result, it affected the tourism sector and damaged the road infrastructure in Da Nang city. In this study, UAV was used to investigate the rockfall-prone area. According to the field survey, there were many large tectonic fractures and unstable blocks on the rock cliff along the Hoang Sa road. This paper focused on the mechanism of rockfall in a high-risk rockfall area on the Hoang Sa road and determined a suitable barrier location and height using parameters such as run-out distance, bounce height, velocity, and kinetic energy of the falling rock blocks with the RocFall software. The numerical analysis indicated that the appropriate barrier location and height for this area were at 14.5 and 5 m, with a kinetic energy of 590 kJ.