Modeling the Slump-Type Landslide Tsunamis Part II: Numerical Simulation of Tsunamis with Bingham Landslide Model

Abstract

This paper incorporates the Bingham rheology model with the Navier–Stokes solver to simulate the tsunamis excited by a slump-type landslide. The slump is modeled as the Bingham material, in which the rheological properties changing from the un-yield phase to yield phase is taken into account. The volume of fluid method is used to track the interfaces between three materials: air, water, and slump. The developed model is validated by the laboratory data of the benchmark landslide tsunami problem. A series of rheological properties analyses is performed to identify the parameter sensitivity to the tsunami generation. The results show that the yield stress plays a more important role than the yield viscosity in terms of the slump kinematics and tsunami generation. Moreover, the scale effect is investigated under the criterion of Froude number similarity and Bingham number similarity. With the same Froude number and Bingham number, the result from the laboratory scale can be applied to the field scale. If the slump material collected in the field is used in the laboratory experiments, only the result of the maximum wave height can be used, and significant errors in slump shape and moving speed are expected.

Keywords

• landslide tsunamis
• slumps tsunami
• scale effect
• Bingham number similarity
• Froude number similarity
• dimensional analysis