An approach towards probabilistic design scenario for rockfall protection works

The design of rockfall protection works relies on the evaluation of a characteristic energy value: this is usually done through 2D or 3D numerical simulations of block trajectories, from which the actual reference value of total kinetic energy at a specific location along the slope can be identified. The experience and expertise of the designers play a crucial role in the choice of the input parameters, as the process heavily depends on the choices of the reference values themselves, making the approach highly deterministic and often empirical. A possible alternative design approach would rely on the probabilistic descrip-tion of the phenomenon, with distributions of the most relevant parameters instead of de-terministic values. The significant advantage of this probabilistic approach lies in the rig-orous statistical treatment of the parameters involved, providing in return a significantly reliable method, and the possibility to define generalized acceptable levels of residual probability.