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The destructive nature of debris flows is mainly caused by flow bulking from entrainment of an erodible channel bed. To arrest these flows, multiple flexible barriers are commonly installed along the predicted flow path. Despite the importance of an erodible bed, its effects are generally ignored when designing barriers. In this study, three unique experiments were carried out in a 28 m-long flume to investigate the impact of a debris flow on both single and dual flexible barriers installed in a channel with a 6 m-long erodible soil bed. Initial debris volumes of 2.5 m³ and 6 m³ were modelled. For the test setting adopted, a small upstream flexible barrier before the erodible bed separates the flow into several surges via overflow. The smaller surges reduce bed entrainment by 70% and impact force on the terminal barrier by 94% compared to the case without an upstream flexible barrier. However, debris overflowing the deformed flexible upstream barrier induces a centrifugal force that results in a dynamic pressure coefficient that is up to 2.2 times higher than those recommended in guidelines. This suggests that although compact upstream flexible barriers can be effective for controlling bed entrainment, they should be carefully designed to withstand higher impact forces.

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A Dewpoint PotentiaMeter (WP4) was used to measure suction of two fine-grained soils: a locally available silty soil and commercially available white clay, rapidly. Using these results, efforts were made to check the suitability and efficiency of various fitting functions, for defining the soil-water characteristic curve, SWCC, for high suction ranges (0-80 MPa). In addition to this, a knowledge-based database SoilVision 3.34 was used to estimate the SWCC using Pedo-transfer functions, PTFs. The study brings out that the Fredlund et al. [1997, Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Unsaturated Soil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp. 13-23] PTF yields the best estimate of SWCC for fine-grained soils. The influence of the soil type and dry unit weight, on suction and the SWCC fitting parameters, have also been studied.

No abstract