An Instrumented Flume for Infiltration Process Modeling, Landslide Triggering and Propagation

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Abstract
Rainfall is the most common cause of landslides, so it is important to know the processes underlying failure starting with the rainfall infiltration processes into the granular soils, the distribution of the water content and pore pressure in both saturated and unsaturated layers, to include their effects in terms of slope stability. Although the literature is full of simulation models, the complexity of phenomena would impose a more detailed analysis by a well-equipped flume. For that purpose, a meter-scale laboratory experiment at the University of Calabria was designed and built. It is very useful for carrying out complex tests to analyze the response of loose soils or debris in terms of stability. It is composed of two channels: the first one was adopted for analyzing the triggering mechanisms, the second one for the propagation phases. Both channels are equipped with suitable sensors for monitoring the main physical variables, i.e., spray nozzle systems to apply a specific rainfall intensity; minitensiometers and TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry) for measuring, respectively, suction values and water content; miniaturized pressure transducers for pore water pressures; and laser displacement sensors. This paper describes in detail the instrumented flume and explores its potential through the analysis of a homogeneous slope of pyroclastic soil. An experiment was carried out to reproduce landslide triggering in pyroclastic soils, evolving in mudflow, by considering a homogeneous deposit. The measurements carried out allowed testing the apparatus, describing the behavior of the soil after rainfall infiltration and better identifying factors particularly significant in the collapse mechanism and process evolution.

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