A Novel Radial Basis Function Approach for Infiltration-Induced Landslides in Unsaturated Soils

In this article, the modeling of infiltration--induced landslides, in unsaturated soils using the radial basis function (RBF) method, is presented. A novel approach based on the RBF method is proposed to deal with the nonlinear hydrological process in the unsaturated zone. The RBF is first adopted for curve fitting to build the representation of the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) that corresponds to the best estimate of the relationship between volumetric water content and matric suction. The meshless method with the RBF is then applied to solve the nonlinear Richards equation with the infiltration boundary conditions. Additionally, the fictitious time integration method is adopted in the meshless method with the RBF for tackling the nonlinearity. To model the stability of the landslide, the stability analysis of infinite slope coupled with the nonlinear Richards equation considering the fluctuation of transient pore water pressure is developed. The validation of the proposed approach is accomplished by comparing with exact solutions. The comparative analysis of the factor of safety using the Gardner model, the van Genuchten model and the proposed RBF model is provided. Results illustrate that the RBF is advantageous for reconstructing the SWCC with better estimation of the relationship than conventional parametric Gardner and van Genuchten models. We also found that the computed safety factors significantly depend on the representation of the SWCC. Finally, the stability of landslides is highly affected by matric potential in unsaturated soils during the infiltration process.

Automated summary

In this article, a novel approach based on the radial basis function (RBF) method is presented for modeling infiltration-induced landslides in unsaturated soils. The RBF method is used to accurately estimate the relationship between volumetric water content and matric suction, and the meshless method with the RBF is applied to solve the nonlinear Richards equation. The stability of landslides is found to be highly affected by matric potential in unsaturated soils during the infiltration process.