A depth-integrated, coupled SPH model for flow-like landslides and related phenomena

In the past decades, flow-like catastrophic landslides caused many victims and important economic damage around the world. It is therefore important to predict their path, velocity and depth in order to provide adequate mitigation and protection measures. This paper presents a model that incorporates coupling between pore pressures and the solid skeleton inside the avalanching mass. A depth-integrated, coupled, mathematical model is derived from the velocity-pressure version of the Biot-Zienkiewicz model, which is used in soil dynamics. The equations are complemented with simple theological equations describing soil behaviour and are discretized using the SPH method. The accuracy of the model is assessed using a series of benchmarks, and then it is applied to back-analyse the propagation stage of some catastrophic flow-like slope movements for which field data are available. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.