Abstract
Rainfall-induced landslides and debris flows constitute very serious threats to human lives and infrastructure. In many cases, rainfall characteristics which cause the initiation of landslides are not very well determined and this might lead to the misunderstanding of the failure mechanism, the kinematic characteristics and the run-out distance of the failure. In this paper, the design of three series of centrifuge model tests on soil slopes, subjected to rainfall conditions, is presented. The main goal is to investigate rainfall characteristics which cause failure initiation in soil slopes in respect to soil properties and slope geometry. Tests will be performed in a geotechnical centrifuge at the Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics (NCG) under very well defined initial and boundary conditions. For the accomplishment of these tests, a climatic chamber has been developed which accommodates plane-strain slope models and sufficient instrumentation and embodies a rainfall and an evaporation simulation systems. During the centrifuge tests, changes in pore water pressures and soil state as well as deformations of the slopes will be measured, while rainfall intensity and total rainfall will be accurately defined. Three different soil types will be used to create uniform slope models, i.e. fine sand, silty clay and clay, while rainfall intensity will be proportional to the infiltration capacity. The paper describes, also, the saturation and calibration of Druck PDCR-81 miniature pore pressure transducers and SWT5 tensiometers used for pore water pressure measurements.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brand, E.W.: Landslides in Southeast Asia: a state-of-the-art report. In: 4th Int. Symposium on Landslides, vol. I, pp. 17–59. Canadian Geotechnical Society, Toronto (1984)
Fourier, A.B.: Predicting rainfall-induced slope instability. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers / Geotechnical Engineering 199(4), 211–218 (1996)
Craig, W.H., Bujang, B.K.H., Merrifield, C.M.: Simulation of Climatic Conditions in Centrifuge Model Tests. Geotechnical Testing Journal 14(4), 406–412 (1991)
Kimura, T., Takemura, J., Suemasa, N., Hiro-oka, A.: Failure of fills due to rainfall. In: Ko, H.Y., MvLean, F.G. (eds.) Centrifuge 91, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 509–516. Balkema, Rotterdam (1991)
Take, A.W.: The Influence of Seasonal Moisture Cycles on Clay Slopes. PhD thesis. University of Cambridge (2003)
Hudacsek, P., Bransby, M.F., Hallett, P.D., Bengough, A.G.: Centrifuge Modelling of Climatic Effects on Clay Embankments. Engineering Sustainability 162(2), 91–100 (2009)
Askarinejad, A., Laue, J., Zweidler, A., Iten, M., Bleiker, E., Buschor, H., Springman, S.M.: Physical modelling of rainfall-induced landslides under controlled climatic conditions. In: EuroFuge 2012, Delft, Netherlands (2012)
Springman, S.M., Askarinejad, A., Casini, F., Friedel, S., Kienzler, P., Teysseire, P., Thielen, A.: Lessons learnt from field tests in some potentially unstable slopes in Switzerland. Acta Geotechnica Slovenica 9, 5–29 (2012)
Min, Z.: Centrifuge Modelling of Potentially Liquefiable Loose Fill Slopes with and Without Soil Nails. PhD thesis. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2006)
Take, W.A., Bolton, M.D., Wong, P.C.P., Yeung, F.J.: Evaluation of landslide triggering mechanisms in model fill slopes. Landslides 1(3), 173–184 (2004)
Tamate, S., Naoaki, S., Toshiyuki, K.: Simulation of Precipitation on Centrifuge Models of Slopes. International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics 12(3), 89–101 (2012)
Ellis, E.A., Cox, C., Yu, H.S., Ainsworth, A., Baker, N.: A new geotechnical centrifuge at the University of Nottingham, UK. In: Ng, Zhang, Wang (eds.) 6th ICPMG 2006, pp. 129–133. Taylor & Francis Group, London (2006)
Caicedo, B., Tristancho, J., Thorel, L.: Centrifuge modeling of soil atmosphere interaction using a climatic chamber. In: Springman, S., Laue, J., Seward, L. (eds.) Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, pp. 299–305. CRC Press, Leiden (2010)
White, D.J., Take, W.A., Bolton, M.D.: Soil deformation measurement using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and photogrammetry. Géotechnique 53(7), 619–631 (2003)
Zhao, Y.: In situ soil testing for foundation performance prediction. PhD thesis. University of Cambridge (2008)
Stewart, D.P.: Lateral Loading of Pile Bridge Abutments Due to Embankment Construction. PhD thesis. University of Western Australia, Perth (1992)
Gouvernec, S., Acosta-Martinez, H.E., Randolph, M.F.: Experimental Study of Uplift Resistance of Shallow Skirted Foundations in Clay under Transient and Sustained Concentric Loading. Géotechnique 59(6), 525–537 (2009)
Schofield, A.N.: Cambridge Geotechnical Centrifuge Operations. Géotechnique 30(3), 227–268 (1980)
Take, W., Bolton, M.: Tensiometer saturation and the reliable measurement of matric suction. Geotechnique 53(2), 159–172 (2002)
König, D., Jessberger, H.L., Bolton, M.D., Phillips, R., Bagge, G., Renzi, R., Garnier, J.: Pore pressure measurement during centrifuge model tests: Experience of five laboratories. In: Leung, C.F., Lee, F.H., Tan, T.S. (eds.) Centrifuge 1994, pp. 101–108. Balkema, Rotterdam (1994)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Matziaris, V., Marshall, A.M., Yu, HS. (2015). Centrifuge Model Tests of Rainfall-Induced Landslides. In: Wu, W. (eds) Recent Advances in Modeling Landslides and Debris Flows. Springer Series in Geomechanics and Geoengineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11053-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11053-0_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11052-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11053-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)