Investigating Rainfall-induced Unsaturated
Soil Slope Instability: A Meshfree Numerical Approach
Author(s)
L. M. Dakssa & I. S. H. Harahap
Abstract
It is a common phenomenon, especially, in tropical and subtropical regions that a
standing soil slope fails during or immediately after heavy or prolonged rainfall
events. A possible reason is that rainwater infiltration affects the pore-water
pressure distribution in soil slope. While negative pore-water pressures add to
the stability of soil slopes, positive pore-water pressures disrupt the existing
stability. The changes in pore-water pressure in the soil are handled through
infiltration/seepage analyses. Conventionally, numerical approach to seepage
analysis is carried out by the mesh-based finite element software SEEP/W. More
recent studies, however, indicate SEEP/W software yields appalling numerical
oscillations near the wetting fronts as seepage progresses through unsaturated
soils. In view of seeking an alternative approach, in this paper, a meshfree
smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method was used to simulate
infiltration into and seepage through unsaturated soil slope. The governing flow
equation was developed by incorporating seepage force into the Navier-Stokes
equation. Numerical examples were executed to test the capability of the SPH
scheme in mimicking both infiltration and seepage. It was confirmed that the
SPH method is versatile in that new physics of flow can be incorporated during
program coding with ease. Besides, the simulation results indicate that SPH
numerical approach can be considered as a better seepage analysis method as,
unlike the mesh-based finite element, it does not suffer from mesh distortions
when used for simulating large deformations - the case in landslides.
Keywords: continuum mechanics, hydraulic conductivity, infiltration, large
deformation, matric suction, meshfree numerical methods, seepage, SPH.
Keywords
continuum mechanics, hydraulic conductivity, infiltration, large
deformation, matric suction, meshfree numerical methods, seepage, SPH.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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