Fabio Gabrieli and Antonio Pol

DEM modelling of cortical meshes

Cortical meshes are widely used in mountainous areas to protect settlements and infrastructure from the risk of damages and serviceability losses.  At the moment, their design is almost empirically-based because of the complexity of their mechanical behaviour and the difficulties in modelling the rock and soilbackfill. Moreover, laboratory tests are often not representative of the real in-situ conditions.

ew numerical models are able to capture the mechanical behaviour of these meshes at different scales as the discrete element method. The power of this method lies in the possibility to investigate large deformations, local ruptures, dynamic problems and also to appreciate details of the soil-mesh interaction as well as the effect of the particle size.

Steel elements of the mesh can be discretized by means of remote interactions or cylindrical elements having the same tensile properties as that of the wires. The Soil or rocks behind are modelled with spheres or clump of spheres.

Using a particle-based model, several important information for the design and optimization of these meshes can be obtained in terms of mechanical performance from laboratory to field scale.