Meshfree Methods in Geohazards Prevention: A Survey

Geohazards, including the landslide, debris flow, rockfall, surface collapse, surface subsidence, and surface cracks, can bring great threats to human life and property. Generally, the defromation and failure of rock and soil masses can induce geohazards. To effectively predict and prevent geohazards, it is significant to capture the deformation and failure characteristics of rock and soil masses occurring in geohazards. Numerical modeling methods have been widely used to investigate the deformation and failure of rock and soil masses due to their low cost and convenience. Commonly, meshfree methods can be used to model the large deformation and failure characteristics of rock and soil masses without mesh-dependence. In this paper, we aim to provide a survey of related applications in modeling the deformation and failure of rock and soil masses occurring in common geohazards by using four frequently-used meshfree methods, including Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), Material Point Method (MPM), Discrete Element Method (DEM), and Discontinuous Deformation Analysis (DDA). Moreover, the capabilities, key issues, and outlook of the surveyed meshfree methods in the deformation and failure simulation of rock and soil masses are discussed. This paper provides a reference for geohazards prevention from the perspective of modeling the deformation and failure of rock and soil masses using meshfree methods.