NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID PARAMETERS CALIBRATION FOR NUMERICAL MODELLING OF LANDSLIDES

Common geotechnical engineering practice deals with landslide modelling during the triggering and in some cases immediate post-failure phases. This is generally carried out using either Limit Equilibrium Method or Lagrangian formulation for Finite Element Method. The paper describes a method for assessing both the aforementioned phases and propagation of landslides, modelling the sliding mass by the methods of Eulerian formulation specific to Computational Fluid Dynamics. The equation of state parameters governing the fluid-soil equivalence, as well as the ones describing the velocity-shear strain behaviour are found both by numerical matching (the former) and a newly developed laboratory testing method (the latter). Similarities and differences with respect to the classical approach are pointed out as conclusions.