Forecasting Disastrous Characteristics of Highway Landslides Using the Material Point Method: A Surcharge-Induced Perspective

Abstract

Precisely forecasting the disastrous characteristics of landslides can address the optimized preliminary design of the highway landslide stabilization. In this paper, taking the surcharge-induced landslides as an example, we developed the models of the material point method (MPM), a novel meshless numerical method, to calculate the large deformation of the highway landslides, with the affordable computing power. After convincing verification of the MPM model to simulate a surcharge-induced soil landslide, 32 typical postfailure scenarios were analyzed to obtain the highway landslide run-out processes and disastrous characteristics, such as the sliding distance and speed of the leading edge and sliding body morphology. Moreover, linear regression equations of the maximal sliding distance and speed were deduced after verification, to forecast the reasonable avoiding distance. The maximal sliding distance and speed were found to be negatively linearly correlated with the internal frictional angle and cohesion of the soil, and positively linearly correlated with the surcharge and the slope angle, respectively. Optimized preliminary design, of the highways in the mountainous and hilly areas, can be performed based on those insights.