Motivation

Why pySLAMMER?

Sliding block analysis (SBA) is frequently used in assessing earthquake-induced landslides, some of the most common and damaging co-seismic hazards. Although the analysis produces a displacement value, this output should be understood as an index of slope movement rather than a literal field measurement. Because SBA results are index values, continuity with historical analyses is crucial.

The USGS tool SLAMMER standardized rigid, decoupled, and coupled sliding block analysis and enabled the engineering community to apply coupled SBA broadly and consistently. However, SLAMMER’s GUI is not well-suited for the high-volume, chained analysis approaches needed in modern natural hazards research and performance-based geotechnical engineering practice. This limitation motivated the development of pySLAMMER.

What pySLAMMER provides

• Verified functional equivalence to SLAMMER across a broad parametric space for rigid, decoupled, and coupled analyses, preserving historical continuity of index displacements.
• A scriptable Python interface that enables large-scale batch computation, integration into chained analysis pipelines, and inclusion in regional-scale virtual testbeds.
• Transparency and reproducibility through open-source code and automatic metadata storage.
• An extensible platform for community contributions of new sliding block methods. The object-oriented architecture allows new analysis types to inherit input validation, metadata storage, and plotting from existing classes.