Abstract
Landslides are often triggered by earthquakes and can cause immense damage due to large mass movements. To model such large-deformation events, the material point method (MPM) has become increasingly popular in recent years. A limitation of existing MPM implementations is the lack of appropriate boundary conditions to perform seismic response analysis of slopes. In this article, an extension to the basic MPM framework is proposed for simulating the seismic triggering and subsequent collapse of slopes within a single analysis step. Original implementations of a compliant base boundary and free-field boundary conditions in the MPM framework are presented, enabling the application of input ground motions while accounting for the absorption of outgoing waves and the free-ground movement at the lateral boundaries. An example slope is analysed to illustrate the proposed procedure and to benchmark it against the results obtained using an independent simulation technique, based on a three-step finite element (FE) analysis. The comparison generally shows a good agreement of the results obtained from the two independent procedures and highlights advantages of the presented “all-in-one” MPM approach, in particular for long duration strong motions.
Highlights
Earthquake shaking can trigger the failure of slopes, which are stable under purely gravitational loading
The results validate the implementation of the seismic boundary conditions in the material point method (MPM) framework
For a comprehensive risk assessment, the stability of a slope during earthquake loading is of interest, and the subsequent mass movement
Summary
Earthquake shaking can trigger the failure of slopes, which are stable under purely gravitational loading. The damage of such seismically triggered landslides can be large and, for many earthquake events, exceed the damage from all other seismic hazards combined (Kramer 1996). The evolution of seismically triggered landslides is a continuous process, which cannot be strictly separated into separate steps. In this article, this issue is addressed and a methodology is presented, for the simulation of seismically triggered landslides as a continuous process using a single analysis step
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