Numerical simulation of landslide-generated waves during the 11 October 2018 Baige landslide at the Jinsha River

Landslides at river embankments can block watercourses, imperiling the safety of vessels and downstream hydropower stations. The Baige landslide, which occurred on 11th October 2018, is taken as an example to study the landslide motion and landslide-generated wave evolutions. The elasto-viscoplastic and renormalization group (RNG) turbulence models are employed in the FLOW3D software, treating the motion of the Baige landslide as a viscous flow. Numerical results show that the maximum velocity of the slide was approximately 75 m/s when entering the Jinsha River. Further, the waves triggered by massive debris avalanches at three different locations are investigated. The maximum velocity of the landslide-generated wave and the maximum run-up in the Jinsha River reached 45 m/s and 53.9 m, respectively, on the slide axis. The maximum run-up terrain elevation of the wave was 3039.7 m. The simulation results are basically consistent with the actual field observations and fit well with high-speed flow-like landslides. In this case, the displaced water was dominant due to the significant volume of the failure mass and the shallow watercourse of the Jinsha River. The run-down waves located on the source region axis contribute to the rise of water level downstream and upstream. The results from this case study serve as a practical inspiration for research on disaster processes.