Weiwei Zhan

Weiwei Zhan

Assistant Professor at University of Central Florida

Empirical Modeling of Landslide Mobility

less than 1 minute read

Landslide-impacted area is another crucial element for individual landslide hazard assessment for slope units close to infrastructure and community. Rock avalanche is a high-mobility type of landslide that can travel a few to tens of kilometers and move a mass of a million to billion cubic meters.

I studied the mechanism and practical modeling of landslide mobility of such catastrophic landslides. I compiled a landslide mobility dataset combining remote sensing and in-situ survey data and developed multiple regression models to predict the maximum travel distance of rock avalanches. We found that rock avalanches generally show stronger mobility than rock/soil slides and debris avalanches of similar sizes.


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Geomorphological Precursors for Landslide Early Detection

Early detection of rockslides at high-elevation and well-vegetated slopes remains challenging. This study used satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) optical remote-sensing (ORS) images to track evidence of slope deformation and examine potential geomorphological precursors of five large rockslides in China. All the surveyed landslides had cracks or scarps and rockfalls within the landslide source area before the onset of rapid sliding. These precursors can be identified in ORS images taken several years or decades before the rapid slope failure, which provides sufficient time for the landslide early detection in practice. Local topography affects the spatial locations of cracks or scarps. Rockfalls within the landslide source area tend to locate at “key blocks” where slope mass provides forces resisting sliding. The rockfall area ratio, defined as the accumulated area of rockfalls over the landslide source area, ranged from 0.33 to 0.92 before rapid slope failure. The landslides developed on anti-dip and igneous rock slopes show a more significant rise of rockfall area ratio before the slope failure than the landslides on dip slopes. Given the broad availability of ORS data, this study could shed light on the ORS- based landslide early detection and landslide kinematics study.

Numerical Modeling of Landslide Dynamic Processes

To further investigate the extraordinary mobility of rock avalanches, I employed the discrete element method to simulate the entire process of an earthquake-induced landslide (landslide initiation, propagation, and deposition). Through the case study, I observed that the progressive rock fragmentations and violent interparticle collisions significantly contributed to the extraordinary high mobility.

Geotechnical Site Characterization of Deep Sediment Soils

The dynamic penetration test (DPT) and the Menard pressuremeter test (PMT) have been widely used in geotechnical survey of deep soils for megadam foundations in western China. The DPT measures are not well utilized due to the lack of correction factors and of empirical relationships for deep soils. I developed a method for DPT correction and empirical relationships between the corrected DPT blow counts with deformation modulus and bearing capacity of deep soils.