J. Irazábal González, F. Salazar, E. Oñate
Landslides in reservoirs constitute one of the main threats to dams. Although they are not frequent, they may generate severe damages in the population and goods placed near the shores. It is a complex phenomenon, because of the interaction between the landslide, the still water in the reservoir, and the dam. The Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) is an innovative numerical scheme which combines a lagrangian approach with the resolution of FEM equations via mesh generation. In previous works, it had been applied to the simulation of landslides in reservoirs, considering the moving body either as a rigid solid or as a Newtonian fluid. Despite the promising results of the simulation of some reference cases, these constitutive models showed poor performance when applied to other relevant events, such as Vaiont case. Current work introduces the implementation of a non Newtonian Bingham model in the particle finite element method scheme, and the results of its application to several benchmark cases. Some of them have been used to calibrate the parameters of the Bingham model, whereas others served as test cases. The phenomenon presents several intrinsic uncertainties, such as the lack of precise information about the physical properties of the landslide, its geometry, its granulometry, the drag coefficient along the sliding surface, among others. In spite of that, results show that the Bingham model implemented can be useful for estimating the potential consequences of landslides in reservoirs. This implementation makes the PFEM a versatile numerical tool for the analysis of landslides in reservoirs, provided that from now on both rigid solids, Newtonian and non Newtonian fluids can be accounted for. The authors are currently working in the optimization of the numerical code, so that more complex problems could be afforded in more detail. In addition, the erosion module is being validated, in order to reproduce effects such as the dragging of the underlying material due to the landslide, as well as the effect of overtopping on dam stability, particularly for rockfill dams.
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Published on 01/01/2013
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA license
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