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The slope modeling method with GIS support for

rockfall analysis using 3D DDA
a

Lu Zheng , Guangqi Chen , Yange Li , Yingbin Zhang & Kiyonobu Kasama

a

Sichuan University - The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Institute for Disaster
Management and Reconstruction, Sichuan University, China
b

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Department of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong

University, China
Published online: 07 Feb 2014.

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To cite this article: Lu Zheng, Guangqi Chen, Yange Li, Yingbin Zhang & Kiyonobu Kasama (2014) The slope modeling method
with GIS support for rockfall analysis using 3D DDA, Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal, 9:2,
142-152, DOI: 10.1080/17486025.2013.871070
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Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal, 2014

Vol. 9, No. 2, 142152, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17486025.2013.871070

The slope modeling method with GIS support for rockfall analysis using 3D DDA
Lu Zhenga*, Guangqi Chenb, Yange Lib, Yingbin Zhangc and Kiyonobu Kasamab
a

Sichuan University - The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction, Sichuan University, China;
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; cDepartment of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil
Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, China

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(Received 4 March 2013; accepted 25 November 2013)

Rockfall is the most frequent major hazard in mountainous areas. For hazard assessment and further countermeasure design, realistic and accurate
prediction of rockfall trajectory is an important requirement. Thus, a modeling method to represent both geometrical parameters of slope and falling
rock mass is required. This study, suggests taking the advantages of discontinues deformation analysis (DDA) and geographical information system
(GIS). In this study, after developing a three dimensional (3D) DDA program, rstly a special element named contact face element (CFE) was
introduced into 3D DDA; secondly, effectively modeling tools with GIS support were developed. The implementation of CFE also improves the
efciency of both the contact searching and solution process. Then a simple impact model was devised to compare the 3D DDA implemented
directly with a sliding model with theoretical analysis to verify the reliability of the modied 3D DDA program and investigate the parameter
settings. Finally, simulations concerning rock shapes and multi-rocks were carried out to show the applicable functions and advantages of the newly
developed rockfall analysis code. It has been shown that the newly developed 3D DDA program with GIS support is applicable and effective.
Keywords: Rockfall; Slope modeling; 3D DDA; Contact Face Element; GIS

1. Introduction
Rockfall is a frequent and major hazard in mountainous
areas of Japan and worldwide, as shown in Figure 1. It
refers to quantities of rocks fragments from a cliff or
boulders from a slope detached by sliding, falling, or toppling that bounce roll and slide down over the slope surface
till the nally come to rest (Evans and Hungr 1993).
Compared with landslides, it is a natural downward motion
with a small volume. However, despite its limited volume,
rockfall is characterized as high energy, mobility, and the
most destructive mass movement (Guzzetti et al. 2002),
making it a major cause of fatalities (Chau et al. 2004).
Moreover, literature review (Dorren 2003) shows rockfall
could be activated by various trigger mechanisms and conditions. In most cases, rockfall occurs accidently (Masuya
et al. 2009). It indicates that rockfall is hardly predictable
and usually occurs without any obvious warning. Therefore,
rockfall is a potential high threat to both properties and lives
within its runout. Thus, rockfall hazard and risk assessment
is particularly important.
In rockfall hazard and risk assessment and further design
and evaluation of rockfall countermeasures, the runout trajectory and velocity or energy along it are signicant items. At
rst glance, rockfall seems quite a simple process to model.
After release, the rockfall trajectory is a combination of free
*Correspondence author. Email: zhenglu@scu.edu.cn

2014 Taylor & Francis

falling (ying), impacting/bouncing, rolling and sliding processes along the slope surface (Ritchie 1963, Lied 1977,
Descoeudres 1997). These processes are controlled by wellknown physical laws and can be described by simple equations. However, rockfall dynamics is dominated by spatially
and temporally distributed attributes, such as the location of
the detachment point, geometry and mechanical properties of
both rock block and slope. In addition, impact, as one rock
slope interaction, is the most complex, uncertain and poorly
understood stage of rockfall. Thus predicting rockfall movement behaviors, such as runout distance, distribution, trajectory, and velocity or energy, is a complicated operation with a
wide range of probabilistic calculation due to uncertainty of
parameters (Guzzetti et al. 2002).
So far, empirical formulas (for example, Japan Road
Association 2000) are used to estimate the movement behaviors of rockfall. Till recently, the rockfall inventory is insufcient since most rockfall events were not actually reported
(Chau et al. 2004). And the experimental investigations are
also insufcient for a thorough understanding of the phenomenon or for statistical and parametric analysis (Volkwein et al.
2011). Thus, virtually, as shown in Figure 2, that rockfall
occurred outside of preventive range, these empirical formulas
are not applicable in many cases due to the extremely complex
rockslope conditions. Therefore, a computer code that has the
ability to efciently manage and use both geometry and

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Figure 1. Rockfall occurred on a coastal road.

143

Although the basic formulas of 3D DDA had been derived

(Shi 2001), there was no available program till now and the
main problem of slope modeling arises in the 3D simulation. In
the 2D DDA simulation, it is common that the slope can be
represented by a large block or many small articial blocks.
However, if the slope is represented by a single 3D block, there
will be a large number of faces in the slope block, which
makes it difcult to deal with in contact detection. If the
slope is represented by many small 3D articial blocks, the
generation of the slope blocks will become a difcult job.
In this study, we describe a computer program designed to
help simulate rockfall trajectory based on 3D DDA with geographical information system (GIS) support. The program was
developed with the aim of resolving the problems mentioned
above. First the 3D DDA program was developed and then a
new contact face element (CFE) was proposed in this study.
Second, based on it, a new tool using GIS was developed to
model the slope surface. Finally, an application of rockfall
simulation was carried out in order to verify its applicability
and benets on rockfall analysis.
The details on the interpretation and implementation of 3D
DDA are beyond the scope of this paper. Without going into
the details, we refer the readers to the review articles by Shi
(2001).

2. The 3D DDA program for rockfall with GIS Support

Figure 2. Rockfall occurred outside of the preventive range.

mechanical parameters of rock and slope plays an important

role in the prediction of rockfall movement behaviors.
Since discontinues deformation analysis (DDA) (Shi 1988)
can analyze the dynamic displacement and deformation of an
elastic block of any shape, for example, the rigid body displacement, rotation and deformation of a rock block, it is
useful for investigating the movement behaviors of rockfall.
Previous research shows that rockfall problems can be simulated to some accuracy using two dimensional (2D) DDA
(Ohnishi et al. 1996, Chen 2003, Shimauchi et al. 2006, Ma
et al. 2007). However, shown by eld experiments (for example, Ushiro 2006), the rockfall movement behaviors are controlled by the detailed three dimensional (3D) shape of the
falling rock blocks and the complex 3D geometric features of
the slope surface. It indicates that the 2D prole selection is
critical to obtain realistic analysis results using the 2D DDA
model. More generally, the 2D models are limited in their
ability to provide spatial distribution of rockfall trajectories
since they lack lateral movements beyond the prole.
Therefore, a technique to analyze the motion of rockfall on a
three dimensional slope is needed, aiming to establish a more
practical simulation.

In the beginning of 2010, our new 3D rockfall simulation

program based on 3D DDA was developed and it has been
continuously upgraded since. In our last version, the program
can simulate spatially distributed 3D rockfall trajectories and
count statistics of rockfall movement behaviors incorporating
GIS support.

2.1 Assumptions
The model used in the proposed 3D rockfall simulation program is characterized by the following assumptions:
The model deals with single block falls and mass falls,
also called fragmental rockfalls (Evans and Hungr
1993). The interactions among the falling blocks could
be considered.
Air drag and block fracturing are not taken into account.
The kinematic approach, fully adopted from 3D DDA,
treating the falling blocks as polyhedron blocks, allows
the modeling of free fall (ying), impacting/bouncing,
rolling, and sliding processes in a 3D framework. The
inuences of the shape, the size and the angular momentum of the rock on the rockfall movement behaviors are
fully taken into consideration.
The small deformation of the slope surface is not taken
into account.

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L. Zheng et al.

2.2 Input data

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The described model requires the following input data to run

rockfall simulations. The data can be managed and obtained
based on GIS support, as shown in Figure 3:
A digital terrain model (DTM) in raster format without
resolution restrictions in Layer 3.
A grid for restitution coefcients number and the list of
corresponding materials of the model which is chosen to
compute the loss of energy by the means of Rv , which is a
post adjustment coefcient that represents the energy loss
in terms of velocity, when the falling rock impacts on the
slope surface in Layer 2.
A grid for dynamic frictional characteristics and the list of
corresponding joint materials, which are dened in DDA
simulation, used to compute the loss of energy by the
means of friction angle f which is used to calculate
energy dispersion by friction force, when the falling
rock is rolling or sliding along the slope surface in
Layer 2.
A list of rockfall sources in 3D points and the amount of
rock material and the list of corresponding geometries
and materials, which are dened in DDA simulation
including the initial velocities in Layer 1.
A list of tree locations in 3D points and the list of
corresponding geometries in Layer 1.

2.3 Contact face element

In 2D DDA simulation, it is common to model a whole slope
and runout area as a large single block. Sometimes, a problem
can be caused in calculation due to a very large base block and
many small falling rocks, especially, when the detailed shape
of a slope is modeled.
To solve this problem, an alternative way is to divide the base
part into many articial blocks, especially when different physical properties are considered for different areas of the slope.

(a) Single block

(b) Artificial blocks

Figure 4. Slope modeling approaches.

The base blocks are commonly xed since the effect of the
slope deformation can be negligible. And good results can be
obtained by 2D DDA simulation comparisons with the eld
observations.
However, it is difcult to use the same ways in 3D slope
modeling as those in 2D mentioned above since it could
become much more complicated.
If the whole base part is modeled by a big block in 3D
there would be a large number of faces in the slope block,
as shown in Figure 4a, and it would be difcult to deal
with in contact detection.
If the base part is divided into many articial blocks, it is
necessary to generate the articial 3D blocks, which is a
difcult job (Figure 4b).
With the described assumptions the problems mainly concern
the movement behaviors of rock blocks, the small deformation
of the slope block can be ignored. Thus, in 3D DDA simulation, the function of the slope is limited to the surface boundary only. Based on this assumption, a special element named
contact face element (CFE) has been introduced into 3D DDA,
which plays the role of a xed block. A CFE is a line segment
in 2D and a plane in 3D without any physical property. It can
have contacts with other blocks but no displacement and no
deformation will be produced.
Each CFE is a xed and rigid triangle in 3D DDA. Then a
slope can be easily modeled using a network of CFEs as
shown in Figure 5.
Based on CFE, we developed a slope modeling method
combining the GIS support to DDA and modifying the DDA
implemented from the theory of Shi (2001) as followings.
2.3.1 Incorporation of GIS

Figure 3. Data management and access from GIS support.

GIS is a computer system for managing spatial data. GIS

contains facilities for constructing and importing digital elevation models (DEMs) and triangulated irregular networks
(TINs). GIS can be easily utilized to overcome the difculties
in slope topography information acquisition and modeling.
The slope topography is represented by a raster format in
GIS as shown on the left in Figure 6. The black dot points on

Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal

(a) Original DEM

(a) Single block

145

(b) Converting DEM to TIN

(b) Network of Contact Face Element

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Figure 5. Contact Face Element and its application in slope modeling.

(c) Converting TIN to Raster

(d) Slope modeling from Raster data

Figure 7. Slope modeling with GIS support.

Figure 6. Generation of Contact Face Elements from Raster data of GIS.

grids present the elevation. In this form, a slope surface has

been arranged in square cells in X and Y directions, x
and
y
coordinate can be computed out with its index. The
elevation data in Z can be acquired in the elevation matrix
by index.
However, since usually the cell is not planar, a cell will need
to be divided into two triangles to describe the topography.
Therefore, the representation of the slope surface turns to a
terrain regular network (TRN) (Guzzetti et al. 2002) as shown
on the right side of Figure 6.
Usually, the topography is prepared initially by a contour
map which is composed by extracted polyline les as shown in
Figure 7a. The polylines are the direct description of terrain but
are hardly able to be used in slope modeling directly since they
dont with intersect each other and cannot form faces. The rst
step we need to carry out is to transform the polygon les into
a TIN map. Although there are lots of methods to create a TIN
from the vertices of polygons (Lee 1991), in this paper the
scope is only limited by the incorporation of GIS. A TIN
model shown in Figure 7b is already applicable to be used.
However, for efcient data storage, access and slope modeling,
it is necessary to transform the TIN into a raster type as shown

in Figure 7c. The TIN's Xmin ; Ymin is dened as the default

origin, and the Xmax ; Ymax as the upper right corner of the
extent to generate a raster covering the full extent of the
TIN. Then resolution or cell spacing is dened to interpolate
cell z-values from the input TIN to create the raster data. With
GIS support an arbitrary complex slope surface can be modeled using a network of CFEs as shown in Figure 7d.

2.3.2 Improvement in contact searching

For a slope with 2  n
1  m
1 faces, where n is the
column number of the raster data and m is the row number;
when only one rock falls down, the searching for possible
contact blocks needs to compare the boundary of rock with
the boundary of each face, that is 2  n
1  m
1 times.
If using the TRN map of CFEs, during the search for possible
contacts, the number of computation times could decrease
from 2  n
1  m
1 to 1. The effectiveness of searching for possible contact blocks would be largely improved. The
contact searching can be illustrated as following.
Supposing that the lower left index of cell is i 1; j 1,
the triangles of two parts are:
The lower triangle is constructed by taking the upper left,
lower right, lower left elevation points and has an index:
i  j 1; and the upper triangle is constructed with the upper
left, upper right and lower right elevations of raster data; its
node indices are: i  j 2;

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Figure 8. Scheme of contact searching with Contact Face Element network.

It indicates that the lower triangles are always generated and

stored with odd numbers in the global list; and the upper triangles
are at even numbers. Each triangle in the list is a CFE.
Since the projection of CFEs in xy
plane is continuous
and indexed, the contact searching can be improved using
index searching as shown in Figure 8.
The possible contacts between a rock block and CFEs can be
estimated within the region presented by x
and y
indices.
Denote xmin , xmax , ymin , and ymax are the minimum and maximum
coordinates of a block projected in xy
plane domain; xll , yll are
x
and y
coordinates of lower-left corner respectively,
cellsize is the interval in both x
and y
direction.
min
xll
max xll
imin xcellsize
; imax xcellsize
min
yll
max yll
jmin ycellsize
; jmax ycellsize

)
(1)

Figure 9. Point-to-Face contact model (modied from Shi 2001, Jiang and
Yeung 2004).

the projected point of P1 on P2 P3 P4 , which is not changed

after deformation.
*
Here, d0 is the penetration distance, n is the outer normal
of normal spring, ps is the stiffness
direction, pn is the stiffness
*
of shear spring, and l p is the projected direction on P2 P3 P4
of P0 P10 .
Sub-matrix of normal spring.
Since CFE acts as a displacement constraint only. The normal
displacement increment comes only from the rock block:
0

1
xrock urock
*
d n d n@ yrock vrock A nd0 Trock Drock
zrock wrock
*

The possible contact between two rock-blocks can also be

estimated using this map.

2.3.3 Improvement of the solution process

The basic principles can be found in Shi (2001) in a more
comprehensive derivation. Here, only the sub-matrices of contact are discussed.
In 3D DDA, the fundamental contact candidates can be
presented by point-to-face contact and edge-to-edge contact
(not in a plane). Contact forces are generated by contact
springs to push the penetrating blocks to the target surface
through the shortest distance.
Take the point-to-face contact between a polygonal block i
and a CFE j shown in Figure 9 for example. Assume that P1 is
a point before deformation that moves to point P10 after deformation. xrock ; yrock ; zrock and urock ; vrock ; wrock are the coordinates and displacements of P1 , P2 P3 P4 is the CFE face, and
xi ; yi ; zi are the coordinates of Pi ; i 2; 3; 4. According to the
assumption of CFE, there is no displacement of P2 ; P3 ; P4 .P0 is

(2)
where is the normal penetration; Trock is the displacement
transformation matrix of the rock block formed by the rst
order approximation displacement functions; Drock is 12  1
submatrice, the displacement variables of rock block
The potential energy contribution from the normal spring is:

n

1
pn dn2
2

(3)

By minimizing the total potential energy:

*

pn nTrock T nTrock ! Kii 

**

pn d0 nnT Trock T ! Fi 
Sub-matrix of normal spring.

(4)
(5)

Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal

147

Correspondingly, the shear displacement increment is:

*

**

d s d
d n 1
nnT d

(6)

The potential energy contribution from the shear spring is:

1
ps d 2
2 s

s

(7)

By minimizing the total potential energy:

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h
iT h
i
**
**
ps 1
nnT Trock
1
nnT Trock ! Kii 
h
iT
**

ps d0 1
nnT Trock ! Fi 

Figure 10. Slope surface with roughness.

(8)
2.4 Coping with natural variability and uncertainty in the
input data
(9)

Sub-matrix of friction force.

When the state of contact is sliding, a pair of friction forces
parallel to the sliding direction is applied with the same magnitude and opposite directions. The magnitude and directions
of the friction force are obtained from the previous iteration.
0

F pn j j tan f c

(10)

where 0 is the normal penetration after the previous iteration,

f is the friction angle, and c is the coherence.
Therefore, the potential energy of the pair of frictional forces
is given by


*T
F

f *  urock vrock wrock  l p F Drock T M 
 
 l p

Slope topography.
The normal distribution with mean value and standard deviation is given to grid elevations to represent the roughness and
keeps the whole inclination unchanged, as shown in Figure 10.
Mechanical parameters of slope surface.
The normal distribution randomness is also given to Rv and the
friction angle, respectively.
The iteration number can be dened by the user.

(11)
2.5 Output data

where
*T
1
M *  Trock T l p
 
 l p

As pointed out before, parameters of rockfall vary largely in

nature and are difcult to dene precisely. On the other hand,
the DDA theory from Shi (2001) is a deterministic approach
without uncertainties. Our program provides a way to cope
with the natural variability and local uncertainty by adding to
these values a random component.

(12)

Currently, the program outputs

results

 are the trajectory point
;
C
;
C
and the rigid movement
of centroid
coordinate
C
x
y
z


velocity Vx ; Vy ; Vz ; Ryz ; Rzx ; Rxy of each step respectively.
Figure 11 shows a simple example of our program results for
rockfall events occurring in a channel without coping variability and uncertainty.

(13)

3. Program performance

By minimizing the total potential energy:

FM  ! Fi 
As shown above, since
the CFEs are not taken into matrix;
and the sub-matrices between a rock block and a CFE are
only located in main diagonal.
The solution process can be largely enhanced.

To evaluate the reliability and the applicability of our program

we performed tests aimed at:
Comparing the results of the simple but most important
rockfall process: impacting/rebounding with 3D DDA
implemented from the theory of Shi (2001) and investigating the parameter settings.

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Figure 11. Rockfall displacements output in terms of centroid.

Comparing the results of the sliding process with theoretical analysis.

Based on the fundamental tests above, we also carried out two
rockfall tests to show the advantages of our program compared
with other rockfall codes:
Rockfall analysis considering different rock shapes.
Rockfall analysis considering multi-rocks falling.

Figure 12. Verication of Contact Face Element idea by rebound model

(original 3D DDA means the one implemented directly from the theory of
Shi (2001)).

Table 1. Cases using to investigate the parameters settings

Parameters

Value
3

Density (kg/m )
Young Modulus (Pa)
Poissons Ratio
Penalty (N/m)
Time Step (s)

2.50E + 03
Varied from 1.00E + 06 to 1.00E + 11
0.1
Varied from 1.00E + 07 to 1.00E + 12
Varied from 0.01 to 0.005

3.1 Verication of bouncing motion

The simulation of bouncing motion is the greatest challenge in
modeling the interactions between a falling block and the
slopes surface. Of the four types of motion, the bouncing
phenomenon is the least understood and the most difcult to
predict. The bouncing motion can be directly simulated by
DDA in which elastic deformation and rigid body movement
are taken into account.
A simple example of impacting and rebounding was introduced
to investigate the reliability of modied 3D DDA. As shown in
Figure 12, the right-upper part shows the geometrical patterns of
this example. The parameters of the upper block are listed in
Table 1. Simulation cases were simulated to investigate penalty
settings when t 0:01s , 0:005s, taking E 5  109 Pa, and
p 109 N =m as an example. As shown in Figure 12 the blue solid
line shows the simulation results from 3D DDA implemented
from Shi (2001), while white circles are the simulation results
from our modied 3D DDA using CFE. The result shows that the
two programs can obtain nearly the same rebounding velocity
when considering a completely elastic impact.
Then we investigated how the penalty value used in DDA
affected the accuracy in terms of rebound velocity ratio. If the
impact/rebound interaction is elastic collision, the theoretical
analysis result of rebound velocity ratio is 1.0. Figure 13
shows rebound velocity ratio varies with Youngs Modulus
when t 0:01s. Figure 13 shows that the materials with
E < 109 Pa are largely affected by their plastic deformation

Figure 13. Rebounding velocity ratio vs. Youngs modulus.

during impact. Figure 13 also shows that the accuracy is

affected by the penalty method used in DDA. However,
p > 109 N =m could obtain enough accuracy for application.
According to our results, we suggest adopting the penalty
value p 109 N =m when t 0:01s. By investigation, the
suggested parameter value p 109 N =m is appropriate when
t 0:01s , 0:005s. The following verication of the sliding
process used the same setting parameters as shown in Table 2.

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Table 2. Parameters settings with suggested Penalty and Time step

Parameters

Value

Density (kg/m3)
Young Modulus (Pa)
Poissons Ratio
Penalty (N/m)
Time Step (s)

2.50E + 03
1.00E + 10
0.1
1.00E + 09
0.01

The DDA directly from Shi (1988, 2001) is derived based

on the assumption of a completely elastic collision without
energy losses when rocks impact on the slope. That is, the
rebound velocity will equal to the incident velocity. However,
because part of kinematical energy may be absorbed as plastic
deformation of the soft layer on the slope surface, or converted
to the other types of energy such as heat, the rebound velocity
becomes much lower. The phenomenon of energy loss in
collision has been shown by many experiments. If the collision
energy loss is not considered, the falling rock will travel much
longer and faster, and jump much higher than the observations
by in situ experiments.
The collision energy loss is considered similar to Chen
(2003) using a so called post adjustment method. The velocity
of the falling rock is modied after a contact between a rock
and a CFE is experienced:
0

1
0 1
Vx
V~x
@ V~y A Rv @ Vy A
Vz
V~z

analytical solutions from Equation (14). The blue solid and red
dash-dot lines present the theoretical results for friction angle 10
and 20 respectively and the blue circle and red square dots are
simulation results from modied DDA with CFE.
The DDA results are in quite good agreement with theoretical solutions. Therefore, DDA can be used to simulate the
sliding motion.

(14)

where, Vx ; Vy ; Vz is the velocity of a rock right after collision;

Rv represents the energy loss in terms of velocity, from the
observed data cited in Chen (2003), the range of Rv is approximately ranged from: 0.6~0.8; V~x ; V~y ; V~z is the modied initial
velocity used in our simulation.

3.2 Verication of sliding motion

The sliding friction is dened by means of the normal component with respect to the boundary surface of the block's weight
according to Coulomb's law. The displacement of a sliding
block under gravity on an inclined plane can be easily derived
as follows.
1
d gsin
cos tan ft 2
2

Figure 14. Verication of modied 3D DDA using Contact Face Elements in

sliding process analysis.

(14)

where is the slope angle and f is the angle of kinetic friction.

Equation (14) is valid only when f is less than .
It also can be simulated by DDA directly. An inclined plane
slope with slope angle of 30 was modeled as shown in the
right-upper part of Figure 14. A rectangular block sliding on
the slope was simulated by DDA.
Two cases of the friction angle 10 and 20 were analyzed
respectively. The results are shown in Figure 14 together with the

3.3 The Inuence of rock shape

In most previous rockfall analysis codes, the falling rock was
treated as a lumped mass of a point that did not take the rock
shape into consideration directly (Dorren 2003, Volkwein et al.
2011). However, the lateral displacement, which is very important (Crosta and Agliardi 2004) in 3D rockfall analysis, would
be inuenced by mechanical and geometrical parameters of
both slope and falling rock as shown by rockfall eld and
laboratory experiments (for example, Ushiro et al. 2006).
Thus, the lumped mass assumption is not realistic. Based on
3D DDA, our program has the advantage that the inuence of
rock shape on rockfall trajectories can be considered directly.
The simulation model of slope surface and rock block is
shown in Figure 15. The slope surface consists of two parts.
The inclination part is h 57:7m high, 100m long with an
average slope angle 30 . The plane part is located in xy

plane and is 150 m long. The width of the slope surface is
100 m. The roughness obeys normal distribution and averages
at x 0:1m and standard deviation 0:1. The grid length is
cellsize 5m. Two types of rock blocks were used in the simulation, one is a regular 20-faced polyhedron (red) and the other is
a cube (blue). Both rock blocks have the same volume of 1 m3.
Table 3 shows the mechanical parameters used for the rock
fragments, restitution and friction coefcients between the
rocks and slope and shows the penalty and time step values.

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L. Zheng et al.

Figure 15. Bi-planar slope model with toughness to investigate the inuence
of rock shapes.

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Figure 16. Trajectories of rocks with different shapes.

Table 3. Parameters settings to investigate the inuence of rock
shapes
Parameters

Value

Density (kg/m3)
Young Modulus (Pa)
Poissons Ratio
Restitution coefcient
Friction coefcient ( )
Time Step (s)

2.50E + 03
1.00E + 10
0.1
0.8
15
0.005

The simulation results are shown in Figure 16. The red dashdot lines are the trajectories of regular 20-faced polyhedron
rock blocks, while the blue solid lines present the trajectories
of the cubic ones falling from the same position. After 10
iterations it shows the trajectories are dispersed due to the
roughness of the slope surface. The lateral displacement
could be represented by the dispersion angle. If denoted, as
the denoted dispersion angle, W as the dispersion width and L
as the falling length along the cross section plane:

arctan


W
2L

(15)

Using Equation (15), we can obtain the dispersion angle

r20 5:6 and cube 11:6 respectively for regular

Figure 17. Multi-rocks falling analysis.

20-faced polyhedral and cubic falling rocks. The results show

that the rounder the rock block is, the smaller the dispersion is.
It shows there is an obvious effect from the detailed shape of
the rock block. Our program can obtain more realistic results
when there is detailed rock shape information.

3.4 Multi-rocks falling analysis

According to literature review (Dorren 2003, Volkwein et al.
2011), previous rockfall analysis codes considered only single
block falls. However, our program, based on 3D DDA, can
simulate mass rockfalls with consideration of collisions
between falling rocks. An example was given using the following data.
Figure 17 shows the topographical map of the mountain
used for rockfall simulation. At the foot of the slope, there is
a national road passing along. To prevent the road and trafc
from rockfall disasters, there is an embankment with a height
of 3:5m planned to be constructed at the foot of the mountain.
It is considered that rock fragments containing 41 blocks with
a total mass of 63; 957:365kg and volume of 25:600m3 fall
from the upper part of the slope, at an average height of
Z 48:259m. The volume of the rocks range from 0:170m3
to 1:330m3 with an average of 0:625m3 .

Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal

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Table 4. Parameters setting for multi-rocks falling simulation

Parameters

Value

Density (kg/m3)
Young Modulus (Pa)
Poissons Ratio
Restitution coefcient
Friction coefcient ( )
Time Step (s)

2.50E + 03
1.00E + 09
0.2
0.8
10
0.001

151

slope modeling method into the 3D DDA codes with GIS

support for the following:
A new CFE has been proposed in this study.
Based on it, a new tool using GIS has been developed to
model the slope surface.
Our program can take both the advantages of DDA and GIS.
And then a special element named CFE has been introduced
into 3D DDA.
Spatial distributed data can be efciently managed and
obtained from GIS.
3D slope surface modeling techniques using GIS have
been incorporated into the program.
The efciency of the contact searching and solution process has been improved.

Figure 18. Trajectories of multi-rocks falling and stopped by countermeasure.

The mean restitution coefcient between the rocks and slope

is 0.8, which is the upper band from Chen (2003) with standard deviation 0.05. There is medium roughness and no vegetation since a previous landslide had occurred. The slope
material is soft rock. Thus, according to eld experiments
(Japan Road Association 2000), the mean coefcient of friction is 0.11 ~ 0.20, which approximately equals to f 10
with standard deviation 0.05. Table 4 presents the mechanical
parameters and gives the penalty and time step values.
The calculated trajectories are shown in Figure 18. It can be
shown that most of the falling rocks nally stop on a gentle
step at the height Z 33:605m. However, there are 10 leading
rocks which reach the road due to collisions among the rocks.
It shows that the collisions among rocks should be taken
into consideration to obtain accurate results in simulating mass
rockfall event.

Based on it, we have carried out fundamental simulation tests

using an impacting/rebounding process model comparing the
3D DDA implemented from the theory of Shi (2001) and a
sliding process model comparing with theoretical analysis. The
results verify that our modied 3D DDA is reliable to analyze
rockfall problems. The parameter settings (penalty and time
step) used in DDA has also been investigated. By these investigations, we suggest p 109 N =m is appropriate value used
when t 0:01s , 0:005s.
Furthermore, two applications of our new program have
been carried out to show its advantages compared with previous rockfall codes.
Rockfall analysis considering different rock shapes.
We tested the program using different rock block shapes.
The results show a large variation if the shapes of falling
rock are taken into consideration.
Rockfall analysis considering multi-rocks falling.
We have simulated a case of mass rockfalls. It shows that
the leading rocks travel farther due to collisions among
the falling rocks.
However, due to the limitation of time, the evaluation works
are based on only a few cases. Further evaluation should be
carried out with incorporation of engineering uncertainties in
probabilistic analysis.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Genhua Shi, for his guidance, discussions
and suggestions on developing the code.

4. Conclusions
We have developed a new 3D rockfall trajectory program
based on a 3D DDA program with the support of GIS in this
study. According the limitations of slope modeling mentioned
in the text, after developing a 3D DDA code, we added a new

Funding
This study has received nancial support from the Global Environment
Research Found of Japan (S-8) and from Grants-in-Aid for Scientic
Research (Scientic Research (B), 22310113, G. Chen) from Japan Society

152

L. Zheng et al.

for the Promotion of Science. This nancial support is gratefully

acknowledged.

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