Résumé
Rockfalls are often natural events with potentially catastrophic consequences forhuman life and infrastructure. Therefore, predicting and correctly estimating their trajectoriesis essential for their mitigation. Perhaps the most crucial step in a rock instability hazard studyis computing the trajectory by taking into account more realistic characteristics of the unstablemass, terrain topography, and the interaction of the slope surface with falling rock blocks. Itshould be remembered that a block of rock, as a naturally breakable material and in the presenceof pre-existing fractures, often breaks into several blocks when it falls due to impact energy.Another scenario to consider is that, in many cases, instability results from a heavily fracturedrock mass, causing several blocks to fall simultaneously at the start of the fall. Consequently, itis crucial to take into account the interaction between these fragments, as it can significantlymodify the expected trajectories. In this paper, to address three-dimensional studies, weintroduce the use of a physics engine integrated with home-made auxiliary codes in a gamingplatform as a remarkably suitable alternative method to calculate multi-block rockfalltrajectories. Furthermore, the calculation of the trajectory of falling rocks in two-dimensionalsections is studied, taking into consideration the phenomenon of fragmentation during the fall.This is achieved through the utilization of a specially designed Discrete Element Method(DEM) code, which takes into account arbitrary particle shapes and their fragmentation byincorporating the concept of fracture energy.