Assessment of functional effects of the existing preventive structures during landslides

Many landslide prone slopes were identified in Japan and preventive structures were implemented against them. However, property damage and life loss were still caused by landslide despite of existing preventive structures. Therefore, the validity of existed structures should be investigated. The Discontinuous Deformation Analysis (DDA) is considered as an appropriate numerical tool to resolve this problem since it can reproduce the process of landslide movement after failure. In this paper, both landslide with or without preventive structures is simulated to assess the validity of preventive structures by using DDA. Moreover, different cases are carried out to determine the appropriate position of the building according to the change trend of impact force. Results show that the assessment is acceptable and believable, the calculated impact forces on the building at different locations can be used to future preventive design.