SPH Modelling of a Dike Failure with Detection of the Landslide Sliding Surface and Damage Scenarios for an Electricity Pylon

Abstract

The 3D SPH code SPHERA (RSE SpA) simulates the triggering and runout stages of a full-scale earth-filled dike failure with coastal flood. The code formulation is consistent with the Kinetic Theory of Granular Flow KTGF and requires no tuned input. The main Landslide Sliding Surface LSS within the dike is detected from the field of the quadratic invariant of the strain-rate tensor. The comparison with the experimental LSS position shows Maximum Gross Errors of 0.90m, in terms of depth difference at fixed planimetric point, and of 0.41m, in terms of LSS distance (i.e. 22% and 10% of the initial dike-top height over the excavation bottom). Inter-comparisons consider calibrated FEM results for the triggering stage. The LSS detection criterion is defined and verified via analytical solutions and code validations on spherical Couette flows. The impact on a virtual electricity pylon is assessed. The code improvements and tutorials are available at github.com.