Application of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) for the Simulation of Flow-like Landslides on 3D Terrains

Flow-type landslide is one type of landslide that generally exhibits characteristics of high flow velocities, long jump distances, and poor predictability. Simulation of it facilitates propagation analysis and provides solutions for risk assessment and mitigation design. The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method has been successfully applied to the simulation of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) flow-like landslides. However, the influence of boundary resistance on the whole process of landslide failure is rarely discussed. In this study, a boundary algorithm considering the friction is proposed, and integrated into the boundary condition of the SPH method, and its accuracy is verified. Moreover, the Navier-Stokes equation combined with the non-Newtonian fluid rheology model was utilized to solve the dynamic behavior of the flow-like landslide. To verify its performance, the Shuicheng landslide event, which occurred in Guizhou, China, was taken as a case study. In the 2D simulation, a sensitivity analysis was conducted, and the results showed that the shearing strength parameters have more influence on the computation accuracy in comparison with the coefficient of viscosity. Afterwards, the dynamic characteristics of the landslide, such as the velocity and the impact area, were analyzed in the 3D simulation. The simulation results are in good agreement with the field investigations. The simulation results demonstrate that the SPH method performs well in reproducing the landslide process, and facilitates the analysis of landslide characteristics as well as the affected areas, which provides a scientific basis for conducting the risk assessment and disaster mitigation design.

Effects of Barrier Stiffness on Debris Flow Dynamic Impact—II: Numerical Simulation

The destructive and impactful forces of debris flow commonly causes local damage to engineering structures. The effect of a deformable barrier on the impact dynamics is important in engineering design. In this study, a flow–structure coupled with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics model was presented to investigate the effects of barrier stiffness on the debris impact. A comparison of the results of physical tests and simulation results revealed that the proposed smoothed particle hydrodynamics model effectively reproduces the flow kinematics and time history of the impact force. Even slight deflections of the deformable barrier lead to obvious attenuation of the peak impact pressure. Additionally, deformable barriers with lower stiffness tend to deform more downstream upon loading, shifting the deposited sand toward the active failure mode and generating less static earth pressure. When the debris flow has a higher frontal velocity, the impact force on the barrier is dominated by the dynamic component and there is an appreciable effect of the stiffness of the deformable barrier on load attenuation.

PySPH: A Python-based Framework for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

PySPH is an open-source, Python-based, framework for particle methods in general and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) in particular. PySPH allows a user to define a complete SPH simulation using pure Python. High-performance code is generated from this high-level Python code and executed on either multiple cores, or on GPUs, seamlessly. It also supports distributed execution using MPI. PySPH supports a wide variety of SPH schemes and formulations. These include, incompressible and compressible fluid flow, elastic dynamics, rigid body dynamics, shallow water equations, and other problems. PySPH supports a variety of boundary conditions including mirror, periodic, solid wall, and inlet/outlet boundary conditions. The package is written to facilitate reuse and reproducibility. This article discusses the overall design of PySPH and demonstrates many of its features. Several example results are shown to demonstrate the range of features that PySPH provides.