Numerical simulation of landslide-generated waves using a SPH-DEM coupling model

Abstract

Landslide-generated waves are natural disasters that have raised the attention and concerns of researchers and engineers during the past decades. Since landslide-generated waves involve complex processes such as the impact of landslides, wave generation, and propagation, traditional numerical methods cannot capture this process well. Based on Darcy's law, this study proposed a coupled algorithm of smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) and discrete element method (DEM) to deal with the interaction between particles and fluids at the macroscopic scale. The interrelationship between fluid permeation velocity and pressure in solids is considered in the coupled algorithm. The FORTRAN language established the landslide-generated surge wave model under the SPH-DEM fluid-solid coupling framework. The surge waves generated by underwater submerged deformable landslides and the high-speed unsubmerged deformable landslides were simulated as typical landslide cases in this study. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the coupling method is verified by comparison with experimental data. The simulation results of the current model agree well with the experimental data or simulation results in the previous literature. Therefore, the SPH-DEM model can forecast the impacts of landslides-generated waves.