Centrifuge modelling of the seismic behaviour of slopes (Ghopal Madabhushi, Univ. Cambridge)

There is a renewed interest in the stability of slopes that are subjected to earthquake loading. There have been numerous examples of slope instabilities and failures that were recorded in previous earthquakes such as the 921 Ji Ji earthquake in Taiwan in 1999 to more recent the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008 and the Kahramanmaras earthquake in Turkey in 2023. With increased rainfall intensities that destabilize the slopes even smaller magnitude earthquakes can trigger landslides. In this presentation the use of dynamic centrifuge modelling will be shown to be a useful tool in investigating the slope failure mechanisms under seismic loading. At Cambridge university the problem of slopes, both very gentle as well as very steep slopes has been studied using the centrifuge testing. The basic principles of dynamic centrifuge modelling, the scaling laws that pertain to this technique and some of the newer developments in measurement techniques using optical measurements will be presented.