ER1 Duc Toan Cao

Research project description:

 

Dynamic analysis of catastrophic landslides considering thermo-poro-mechanical effects

Name of fellow: Duc Toan Cao

Department: Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural             Engineering, University of Padua

Supervisor: Prof. Bernhard Schrefler, Dr. Lorenzo Sanavia & Prof. Yongqi Wang

Landslides and debris flows are serious geo-hazards common to countries with mountainous Landslides and terrains. The high speed and the enormity of debris mass make debris flows one of the most dangerous natural hazards.

 

The main tasks of this research aim to develop a thermo-hydro-mechanical finite element model for variably saturated soils in dynamics. This model will applied to the simulation of catastrophic landslide where frictional heating may develops and induce phase change for liquid water to vapour.

 

The methodology for this problem: By means of the concepts of frictional and thermo-poro-mechanical soil behaviour dynamic post-failure analysis of catastrophic landslides can be described. Thermoplastic collapse release thermal energy in shear bands which leads to a rapid increase in pore pressure, and further to the loss of strength and a sliding motion on a frictionless base. In order to achieve credible predictions for the heat generated pore pressure, critical factors must be described.

 

The research cooperation within the Mumolade international network is fundamental, in particularly with ESR4 (Evanthia Kakogiannou) and ESR5 (Maria Lazari), but also with ESR1 (Aleksandra Jakubczyk) and ESR2 (Xiaogang Guo). This research will be made available to WP2 and WP3.

 

 

Figure: North (Monte Toc) to south (Monte Salta) section showing the general layout of the syncline, theVaiont gorge and the position of the ancient landslide (after Semenza and Ghirotti, 2000).

ER1 Duc Toan Cao