Post-failure stage analysis of flow-type landslides using different numerical techniques

Abstract

The analysis of the post-failure stage of landslides is of great interest for the geotechnical community (researchers and practitioners), especially for the case of flow-type landslides that are generally characterized by very high velocity and very long distance of run-out. This interest has increased in recent years thanks to the development of numerical methods able to solve successfully problems involving large deformations. Although such methods were employed in several studies for the analysis of the post-failure stage of landslides, only few of them have compared the numerical performance of the available techniques in dealing with real case studies. In the present study, three methods recognised as very effective numerical techniques for solving large deformation problems are considered: the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) method, the Material Point Method (MPM) and the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. These methods are used herein to simulate the post-failure stage of some well-documented landslides that evolved in a flow after failure. The predictive capacity of the considered methods and the associated computational costs are discussed with a view to their use for practical purposes.