Abstract
Experiments and numerical analysis were both carried out to evaluate the amount of energy dissipated during the rebound between single boulder (concrete made blocks with many varied shapes) and a soft or stiff substratum. A high speed camera made it possible to analyze the collision kinematics and to determine the role played by different features such as the incident axial/angular velocities, the boulder shapes, the impact configuration and the substratum type, on the amount of dissipated energy. A three-dimensional discrete element code was used to simulate the experiments by accounting for the actual shape of the boulder and some dissipation mechanisms. The comparison between the experimental and numerical trajectories allowed for an physical interpretation of the dissipation mechanisms and an identification of a set of parameters to be introduced in the simulations. That way, the predictive ability of the discrete model of rock avalanche can be improved by including in-situ measurements.
Highlights
Rock falls or rock avalanches are becoming increasingly frequent due to climatic changes
The numerical model used is based on the discrete element method (DEM) approach and takes account of real shape of blocks and energy dissipation modes due to collisions, friction and rolling resistance [1, 4]
First validated with experimental data resulting from small scale laboratory experiments involving the rebound of small parallelepiped blocks on a rigid substratum [2, 3], the ability of the numerical model to predict the rebound of a rock on a natural soil was evaluated using large scale laboratory experiments involving different block shapes
Summary
Rock falls or rock avalanches are becoming increasingly frequent due to climatic changes. For a better understanding of such mechanisms,a numerical model was developed to take into account the quantities and modes of dissipated energies during the rebound of a rock on a smooth or a rigid substratum. First validated with experimental data resulting from small scale laboratory experiments involving the rebound of small parallelepiped blocks on a rigid substratum [2, 3], the ability of the numerical model to predict the rebound of a rock on a natural soil was evaluated using large scale laboratory experiments involving different block shapes. The numerical model could be used to conduct a statistic analysis of the influence of the block shape that was not possible in an experimental way due to the large number of tests that were needed. In this paper we focus on the methodology used to obtain the optimized set of parameters from experimental tests
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