3D SPH numerical simulation of the wave generated by the Vajont rockslide

•3D numerical modeling of the wave generated by the Vajont rockslide.•Definition of the rocklide kinematics using a 3D approach.•Parallel 3D SPH numerical scheme obtained using the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) of nVidia devices.•Validation against data available in literature.

A 3D numerical modeling of the wave generated by the Vajont slide, one of the most destructive ever occurred, is presented in this paper. A meshless Lagrangian Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique was adopted to simulate the highly fragmented violent flow generated by the falling slide in the artificial reservoir. The speed-up achievable via General Purpose Graphic Processing Units (GP-GPU) allowed to adopt the adequate resolution to describe the phenomenon. The comparison with the data available in literature showed that the results of the numerical simulation reproduce satisfactorily the maximum run-up, also the water surface elevation in the residual lake after the event.Moreover, the 3D velocity field of the flow during the event and the discharge hydrograph which overtopped the dam, were obtained.