Modelling of protective measures Design and validation of rockfall protection systems by numerical modeling with discrete elements 6 th Interdisciplinary Workshop on Rockfall Protection May 22 – 24, 2017, Barcelona, Spain Rocexs : Rockfall Expert Network Page 1 DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF ROCKFALL PROTECTION SYS- TEMS BY NUMERICAL MODELING WITH DISCRETE ELEMENTS Salvador Latorre 1 , Miguel Ángel Celigueta 1 , Joaquín Irazábal 1 , Fernando Salazar 1 , Eugenio Oñate 1 Rockfall protection systems are installed in order to preserve civil infrastructures against landslides and falling rocks. For the evaluation of these systems, one of the main problems is the difficulty to develop laboratory tests, since landslides and falling rocks are unpredictable events that involve the movement of large masses of material over several meters or even kil- ometers. For this reason, the use of numerical methods, which allows reproducing full-scale situations without the need of laboratory devices or sliding materials, has become more popu- lar. The study presented in this document shows the application of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) for the analysis of the behavior of one of the most popular rockfall protection systems, flexible metallic fences. Keywords: Rockfall protection, Flexible metallic fences, Discrete element method, Numeri- cal modeling INTRODUCTION Communication and supply needs of an increasing population, all around the world, force the construction of infrastructures in places threatened by natural hazards such as falling rocks. With the purpose of preserving these infrastructures, different containment systems, such as flexible metallic fences [1], drapery systems [7] and granular material embankments [5], are installed. The difficulty to carry out full-scale laboratory tests, on account of the huge magnitude of the event [3], in addition to the uncertainties in the small-scale testing, due to the distortion in the contours (e.g. anchors of flexible metallic fences), has led to the use of numerical methods. In this study, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is used for the analysis of the behavior of flexible metallic fences for rockfall protection. The classic DEM is based on representing the material by rigid particles that interact with each other according to appropriate contact laws, defined by the material properties. It is a suitable numerical method for the problem under consideration, because: (a) it allows large deformations and displacements and (b) the contact detection is more computationally efficient than in other numerical methods, such as the Fi- nite Element Method (FEM). 1 International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), Barcelona, Spain Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain E-mail address: latorre@cimne.upc.edu (Salvador Latorre) 161