Effects of coupled hydro-mechanical model considering two-phase fluid flow on potential for shallow landslides: a case study in Halmidang Mountain, Yongin, South Korea

Abstract. More than 30 shallow landslides were caused by heavy rainfall that occurred on July 26 and 27, 2011, in Halmidang Mountain, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. To precisely analyze shallow landslides and to reflect the mechanism of fluid flow in void spaces of soils, we apply a fully coupled hydro-mechanical model considering two-phase fluid flow of water and air. The available GIS-based topographic data, geotechnical and hydrological properties, and historical rainfall data are used for infiltration and slope stability analyses. Changes in pore air and water pressures and saturations of air and water are obtained from the infiltration analysis, which were used to calculate the safety factor for slope stability assessment. By comparing the results from numerical models by applying a single-phase flow model and a fully coupled model, we investigate the effects of air flow and variations in hydraulic conductivity affected by stress–strain behavior of soil on slope stability. Our results suggest that air flow and hydro-mechanical coupling affects the rate of increase in pore water pressure, thus influencing the safety factor on slopes when ponding is more likely to occur during heavy rainfall. Finally, we conduct slope failure assessments using the fully coupled model, slightly more consistent with actual landslide events than the single-phase flow model.