A review of flexible protection in rockfall protection

Natural hazards, such as high winds, heavy rains and ice melting, can easily trigger the rockfall which usually leads to great personal injuries and property loss; therefore, the rockfall protection is of great significance and necessity. Among the types of protection, the flexible protection occupies a beneficial condition of application. This paper indicates the basics of flexible protection which includes its classification and advantages, subsequently, analyzing the mechanism of both active protection and passive protection, and then systematically summarizing the research accomplishments, and puts forward the research direction of the flexible protection, including: (1) apart from the traditional rigid protection, the flexible protection has a wide range of advantages, which makes the flexible protection a new and effective protective structure in the rockfall protection; (2) the current researches reveal that though the scholars have done a variety of achievements of flexible protection, there is still a lack of precise simulation of the whole model and local test of the component; (3) putting forward the prospective research direction minutely in both active protection and passive protection.