An investigation of riverbank failure due to water level change using two-phase fl ow SPH model

This paper presents a new numerical framework for simulation of seepage fl ow through deformable porous media using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, and its application to investigate progressive failure of a riverbank due to water level change. The two-phase fl ow model developed herein was derived from the local form of Biot's two-phase mixture theory, in which soil was modeled using an elasto-plastic constitutive model and pore-water was modeled as an incompressible fl uid. The coeffi cient of porosity was considered to vary with large deformation. The coeffi cient of permeability was assumed to be function of the void ratio. The soil cohesion was assumed to be function of degree of saturation. Laboratory scale experiment was conducted to validate the developed model. Results showed that the proposed numerical framework is a promising numerical approach to investigate seepage fl ow through deformable porous media and to simulate the progressive slope failure.