Comparison between the mechanical behavior of barriers against rock fall vs debris-flows

A debris flow is represented by a mixture of solid particles of various sizes and water, flowing along a laterally confined channel-shaped region whilst a rock fall is represented by singular rock blocks moving along the path with different kind of motion like sliding, rolling bouncing etc. The assessment of the energy associated to such a phenomena is very important for the proper design of reten-tion devices that are useful in populated area or generally where it is necessary to limit the destructive effects of such a phenomenon. In this paper, a simplified parametric analysis of the mechanics of the debris flow im-pact is considered in order to estimate the forces that develop on the main structural elements of a retention barrier (Brighenti et al, in prep.) and evaluate their dependency from the various input parameters.