There is today no reliable approach to model the complete process, including initiation and run-out, of landslides in sensitive clays, both on land and offshore. A better understanding and modelling of the entire process would help assess more correctly potential release zones for landslides in sensitive clays, and thereby lead to a better hazard zone mapping than what is done today. The purpose of the project is to model landslide initiation and propagation (mobility) with the coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) version of the finite element method (FEM)-based program ABAQUS in 3D. The project includes a collaboration with Tongji University (Shanghai, China). Tongji was awarded recently an international research Center of Excellence on Resilient Infrastructure (ICRI) to which NGI is a partner.
Predicted Rissa landslide propagation versus time, plan view, modelled by BingClaw. Red dotted curve is the mapped landslide extent. (Liu et al. 2021).