Numerical Modelling of the Internal Erosion Process in Granular Soils using the Material Point Method

Resumo

Accidents caused by landslides, landslides, or large soil pits in cities are often seen in the media. These
events are usually related to erosion, and there are several causes related to this phenomenon, but without a doubt,
the main cause is the runoff of water in direct contact with the soil mass. A specific type of internal erosion
called piping is the most common cause of failure in dikes and / or earth dams, such as the Aznacollar-Spain dam
failure in 1998. Internal erosion can be a natural process, but sometimes they are due to poor decisions or lack of
foresight in structural design. The main challenge, then, is to predict with a certain degree of reliability the danger
of undermining in this type of structure, subject to large deformations and important changes in its edge conditions.
As is well known, one of the great limitations of classical numerical methods, such as the Finite Element Method
(FEM), in the simulation of large deformations is the mesh distortion, thus a better alternative should be used. The
objective of this work is to present a theoretical/numerical approach to the scour problem using the Material Point
Method (MPM), which was developed in order to correct mesh dependence problems with extreme deformations.