Quick Clay and Landslides of Clayey Soils

Asmae Khaldoun, Peder Moller, Abdoulaye Fall, Gerard Wegdam, Bert De Leeuw, Yves Méheust, Jon Otto Fossum, and Daniel Bonn
Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 188301 – Published 28 October 2009

Abstract

We study the rheology of quick clay, an unstable soil responsible for many landslides. We show that above a critical stress the material starts flowing abruptly with a very large viscosity decrease caused by the flow. This leads to avalanche behavior that accounts for the instability of quick clay soils. Reproducing landslides on a small scale in the laboratory shows that an additional factor that determines the violence of the slides is the inhomogeneity of the flow. We propose a simple yield stress model capable of reproducing the laboratory landslide data, allowing us to relate landslides to the measured rheology.

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  • Received 29 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.188301

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Asmae Khaldoun1, Peder Moller2, Abdoulaye Fall1, Gerard Wegdam1, Bert De Leeuw3, Yves Méheust4,5, Jon Otto Fossum4, and Daniel Bonn1,2

  • 1van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65, 1018XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l’ENS, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France
  • 3Physical Geography department, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65, 1018XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 4Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Hogskoleringen 5, 7491 Trondheim, Norway
  • 5Geosciences Rennes (UMR CNRS 6118), Université Rennes 1, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes, France

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Issue

Vol. 103, Iss. 18 — 30 October 2009

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