Failure mechanisms of landslide dams with different materials: laboratory experiment and physical analysis

Abstract

China's southwestern region is characterised by active geological structures and frequent seismic activities. These conditions frequently trigger landslides that obstruct rivers and form landslide dams. The failure of these dams represents a significant threat to downstream populations, as exemplified by the breach of the Tangjiashan landslide dam during the Wenchuan earthquake. This study focuses on the overtopping breach type of landslide dams. It conducts large-scale experiments to investigate the impacts of various grading materials on the breach process. Furthermore, the DABA (Dam Breach Analysis) numerical simulation model is employed to conduct an in-depth analysis of the breach process in landslide dams. Based on the experimental and simulated results, the following characteristics of landslide dam breaches were analyzed. Under identical inflowing conditions, the peak discharge of the fine-grained dam is 1.6 times that of the widely-graded dam, which has a significantly higher susceptibility to breaching. Although both dams failed due to overtopping, their erosion mechanisms differed substantially. For the widely graded dam, coarse particles led to scouring and retrogressive erosion, significantly prolonging the breaching process. In contrast, the fine-grained dam primarily failed through layered scouring. The results show a high degree of consistency between the DABA numerical simulation outcomes and the large-scale experiment data, thus validating the model's reliability. The parameter sensitivity analysis revealed that breach development duration and peak discharge were significantly influenced by dam height, dam crest width, and initial water level. Scientific simulation models can more precisely predict the breach time and impact range of landslide dams, aiding in the development of more effective prevention methods.

Keywords

Landslide dams / Failure mode / Grading materials / Breach mechanism / Physical simulation

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shenggong Guan: Conceptualization, Methodology. Ruile Lin: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. Zhenming Shi: Supervision, Funding acquisition. Ming Peng: Data curation, Validation. Qi Liang: Investigation, Formal analysis. Hongchao Zheng: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Zhen Wang: Resources, Project administration.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors hereby declare that there are no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that might have seemingly influenced the work presented in this paper.

Author agreement and acknowledgement

We express our sincere gratitude to Lingzhi Lu, Mingsong Yuan, Huayong Guo, and Jian Jiao for their guidances and assistances. This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42307250, Grant No. U2244228, Grant No. 41831290) and the Central Government's Guidance Fund Projects for Local Science and Technology Development (2024ZY01041).

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