GSA 2020 Connects Online

Paper No. 218-4
Presentation Time: 2:20 PM

TWO-DIMENSIONAL LARGE DEFORMATION FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING OF SENSITIVE CLAY LANDSLIDES


WANG, Chen1, HAWLADER, Bipul2, KARMAKER, Ripon2, PERRET, Didier3, SOGA, Kenichi4 and DEY, Rajib5, (1)KGS Group, Suite 402 - 4310 Sherwoodtowne Blvd, Mississauga, ON L4Z 4C4, Canada, (2)Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NF A1B 3X5, Canada, (3)Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, 490 rue la Couronne, Quebec, QC G1K 9A9, Canada, (4)The Donald H. McLaughlin Chair of Mineral Engineering - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 447 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1710, (5)Stantec Consulting Ltd., 300W-675 Cochrane Drive, Markham, ON L3R 0B8, Canada

Many large-scale landslides have been observed in sensitive clays. Based on post-slide investigations, the failure patterns can be primarily classified into flowslide, spread, compound, and could be undefined in some cases. The failure pattern depends primarily on soil properties, geometry, topography and loading conditions. In Norway, most of the retrogressive landslides are flowslide. However, in eastern Canada, many spread type failure occurred. The failure mechanisms of the complete process of a large landslide cannot be properly explained using traditional limit equilibrium methods or Lagranginan-based finite element analyses because the former cannot model progressive failure and the latter cannot handle the large deformation due to mesh distortion. In this presentation, the modelling of sensitive clay landslides using a Eulerian-based finite element technique will be presented. The potential factors that change the failure pattern from flowslide to spread, and retrogression and runout distances will be discussed. The simulated failure mechanism might help development of better land-use guidelines in sensitive clay slope areas.