Modelling a viscous rock joint activated by rainfall: Application to the La Clapière landslide

Abstract

The continuous evolution of sliding rock masses activated by rainfall combined with snowmelt will be discussed in this paper. The effects of precipitation on slip velocities during the periods separating failure events have already been studied in the literature by means of either pure statistical approaches or sophisticated numerical codes. A simple schematic model will be presented in this paper based on a crude physical and geometrical simplification of the rock mass hydromechanical system. This model enables simulating the correlations between rainfall/snowmelt data and slip velocities with relative efficiency. This model may be considered as an intermediate tool between purely statistical and more sophisticated numerical models; moreover, it is potentially useful for assessing the stability of civil engineering and open-pit mining slopes.