Research

Landslide tsunamis can cause large destruction. The tsunami generation from landslides involve complex flow mechanics. Examples comprise the violent impact caused by subaerial landslides and flank collapses, as well as the complex flow structures inside a submarine landslide. The ESR14 project will focus on developing new numerical models for understanding the complex interaction between the water body and the landslide, as well as how landslide stratification and development of shear bands govern the early formation of a tsunami. The candidate will develop a primitive model that takes into account the coupled dynamics of a landslide tsunami. We foresee that the model development will be undertaken within open source systems such as OpenFOAM or similar. The coupled landslide-tsunami model will first be used to study processes related to the formation of tsunami generation from subaerial landslides and volcano flank instabilities, simulating both existing laboratory experiments as well as realistic cases. Furthermore, simulating complex internal flow structures inside landslides are envisioned. Available results from the laboratory may be utilized also here.