2026 Volume 63 Issue 6 Pages 242-246
Granular flow is a typical phenomenon that arises in slope disasters such as landslides and debris flows, and its runout distance is closely associated with the resulting damage. Therefore, predicting and evaluating the runout distance is essential for disaster prevention and mitigation. In recent years, the discrete element method (DEM), which can reproduce particle-scale behavior, has been widely utilized for such risk assessment. However, the runout distance of granular flow varies depending on many physical parameters and exhibits strong randomness, making its analysis challenging. The authors have previously published a study that investigated combinations of DEM parameters that are critical for efficiently estimating the maximum runout distance of granular flow through a series of DEM simulations. Specifically, dominant DEM parameters were first identified, and the relationship between their combinations and the runout distance was then analyzed. This article provides an explanatory overview of that study.
