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Physical modeling on performance evaluation of slit-type walls against debris flows

Debris flows caused by heavy rainfall occur along long watersheds, and they travel at extremely rapid velocities. Such debris flows can impact large areas and often cause economic and societal damages. For this reason, barriers against debris flows have been widely constructed. In particular, slit-type walls are popularly used because of the minimum environmental disturbance. However, the mechanism and performance of such slit-type walls is not fully understood. This paper presents the physical modeling results to evaluate the mechanism and performance of the slit-type walls to reduce geohazard risk from debris flows. The scaled physical modeling were performed to identify the effect of spacing and angle of slit-type walls on the clogging process and velocity reduction of debris flow. The performance of debris flow barriers were assessed exploring several parameters including spacing between slit-walls, angle of walls from flow direction, physical characteristics of debris, such as shape, size, and viscosity.

Author(s):

Shin-Kyu Choi    
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Korea, Republic Of

Tae-Hyuk Kwon    
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Korea, Republic Of