SPH-Based Numerical Study on the Influence of Baffle Height and Inclination on the Interaction between Granular Flows and Baffles

Abstract

Arrays of baffles are widely used to prevent and mitigate granular flows (e.g., debris flows and landslides) in mountainous areas. A thorough understanding of the decelerating effect and the impact force of the baffle arrays is essential for engineering design and hazard mitigation. However, the interaction mechanism of granular flows and baffles is still not fully understood. In this work, numerical simulations based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method are performed to investigate the influence of baffle height and inclination on the interaction between granular flows and baffles. It is found that the SPH model can well capture the flow kinematics of granular materials through the baffles and can obtain the impact force acting on the baffle structures. The results indicate that the performance of baffles is affected by the overflow of granular flows and increasing baffle height can effectively improve the deceleration effect on granular flows. However, the impact force analysis shows that the strength of higher baffle structures also needs to be increased in engineering design. In addition, the peak impact force is found to be closely related to the Froude number Fr.