ABSTRACT
The paper presents the results of two methods applied to the impact of fast landslides against an artificial barrier reinforced by geosynthetics. The first approach consists in simulating either the fast-moving landslide or the movable barrier through a single mathematical model based on inelastic collision formulation. In a second approach, the maximum expected impact pressure is estimated from the geometric and kinematic features of the impacting landslide mass by using literature impact formulations, and hence a FEM (Finite Element Method) dynamic analysis is performed to assess how the barrier is damaged and/or displaced during the impact. In such a case, a very detailed geometry of the barrier is considered and there is the chance of simulating the local/internal yielding of the structure. The latter is made of granular soil reinforced through geogrids wrapped around the facing, and it is free to move along the contact with the base soil. The landslide is constituted by a rectangular-like shaped volume of saturated soil moving at some meters per second at the impact stage. However, the height of the impact material is necessarily assumed as constant during the landslide-structure impact interaction. Globally, the two approaches provide consistent results as it concerns the Landslide-Structure Interaction (LSI) problem, with some discrepancies depending on the initial landslide velocity and type/geometry of the protection barrier structure.
