Anchor application in Karatepe andesite rock slope, Izmir—Türkiye

Atatürk's Monument is a steel-constructed building containing a space-truss system, and is the tenth highest monumental construction in the world. Atatürk's mask is installed on this construction. The monument was planned to be built on rocky ground in the old quarry site at Karatepe in İzmir, which has an elevation of 40 m. The steel construction connected to Atatürk's mask was planned to be braced at the andesitic rock slope from three points with different heights. The goal of this study is to determine the most suitable anchor inclination angle. To achieve this goal, two different methods were utilized: (a) kinematic analyses using stereographic projection techniques and (b) numerical analyses considering the stress distribution and lateral and vertical displacements in the andesitic rock slope depending on the variation of the anchor inclination angle. The analyses were conducted in order to confirm the results of the kinematic analyses. The suitable anchor inclination angles obtained from the two different methods were compared, and the results were discussed. The optimum anchor inclination angle obtained from both methods was determined to be 25°. In this state, the anchors are not parallel to the strikes of the discontinuity sets, such as flow band structures, cooling joints and intersection-line formed by the cooling joint sets in andesites. Because the same result was obtained from both methods, it is clear that the stereographic projection methods can be used to determine the suitable anchor inclination angle in jointed rocks.