Analysis of the Entire Failure Process of the Rotational Slide Using the Material Point Method

Abstract

In view of the postfailure simulation, the material point method (MPM) has higher computational efficiency and better computational stability compared with the other numerical methods. This paper aims to understand the entire failure mechanism of the rotational slide using MPM. The Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model is implemented in the modified update stress last (MUSL) scheme. The proposed MPM code is validated by a sand collapse experiment. The simulation result is in good agreement with the experiment result. We used the MPM with the strain softening model to simulate the entire failure of the rotational slide. Numerical results of the location of rupture surface, energy, and run-out distance are related to the parameters of the strain softening model, such as the value of the peak strength parameters and the residual strength parameters. In addition, the randomness of the landslide strength parameter is also one of the important factors that affect the landslide deformation and evolution of the rupture surface. The smaller value of the strength parameter in random MPM makes the landslide unstable.