Thomas Birchler, Kevin Simmler, Michele Magno, Stefan Rickli, Daniel von Rickenbach, Lucie Eberhard, Luca Benini, Marc Christen, Philipp Mayer, Perry Bartelt, Sophia E. Demmel, Elisabeth Hafner, Adrian Ringenbach, Yves Bühler, Michael Schaffner, Christoph Schnetzler, Pascal S. Niklaus, Nora Krebs, Guillaume Meyrat, Andreas Stoffel, Andrin Caviezel, Claire E. Dinneen, Lukas Cavigelli, Tim Aebi, Caviezel A., Ringenbach A., Demmel S.E., Dinneen C.E., Krebs N., Buhler Y., Christen M., Meyrat G., Stoffel A., Hafner E., Eberhard L.A., Rickenbach D., Simmler K., Mayer P., Niklaus P.S., Birchler T., Aebi T., Cavigelli L., Schaffner M., Rickli S., Schnetzler C., Magno M., Benini L., and Bartelt P.
The mitigation of rapid mass movements involves a subtle interplay between field surveys, numerical modelling, and experience. Hazard engineers rely on a combination of best practices and, if available, historical facts as a vital prerequisite in establishing reproducible and accurate hazard zoning. Full-scale field tests have been performed to reinforce the physical understanding of debris flows and snow avalanches. Rockfall dynamics are - especially the quantification of energy dissipation during the complex rock-ground interaction - largely unknown. The awareness of rock shape dependence is growing, but presently, there exists little experimental basis on how rockfall hazard scales with rock mass, size, and shape. Here, we present a unique data set of induced single-block rockfall events comprising data from equant and wheel-shaped blocks with masses up to 2670 kg, quantifying the influence of rock shape and mass on lateral spreading and longitudinal runout and hence challenging common practices in rockfall hazard assessment., The awareness of rock shape dependence in rockfall hazard assessment is growing, but experimental and field studies are scarce. This study presents a large data set of induced single block rockfall events quantifying the influence of rock shape and mass on its complex kinematic behaviour.