Abstract
A large-scale long-runout landslide occurred at UTC + 8 03:50 local time on Aug. 21, 2020, in Hanyuan County of China. This landslide travelled approximately 550 m, causing 9 casualties and 8 houses destroyed. In this work, Discrete Element Method (DEM) is employed to explore the three-dimensional (3D) landslide mass movement. The simulation of landslide geometry evolution is performed using five groups of divisions so that the particle motion of different groups could be distinguished. The numerical post-sliding topography is in good agreement with the actual post-sliding topography. The simulation results show that the peak value of the average velocity during the mass movement is 6.295 m/s, and the main movement time is between 25 and 125 s. In addition, three primary aspects of mass movement are analyzed, including the landslide geometry, the sliding velocity, and the energy. The deformation of the front groups of landslide mass is the largest among all the groups, with a maximum moving distance of 550 m. The velocities of sliding mass decrease from top to bottom in depth and increase from rear edge to front edge. The energy analysis shows that only 1.05% of the gravitational potential energy has converted into the kinetic energy. Moreover, connectivity of the ruptured surface is adapted to simulate the rainfall effect on the mass movement. The result with the 60% connectivity is different with the results with the other connectivity. By comparison, when the connectivity reaches to near 60%, the locked segment fails and then the landslide occurs.
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The authors wish to thank the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFC308100), the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 42107172), the Key Research Project of Sichuan Province (No. 2021YFN0126), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Sichuan University (No. 2021SCU12035) for the financial support.
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Yuan, XY., Chen, ZF., Fu, WX. et al. Mass movement of a long-runout catastrophic landslide on Aug. 21, 2020, in Hanyuan County of China. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 501 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-03010-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-03010-5