Avalanche Dynamics. Review of Experiments and Theoretical Models of Flow and Powder-Snow Avalanches

Abstract The paper of which this is an extended abstract reviews theoretical formulations for flow and airborne powder-snow avalanches. First powder-snow avalanches are considered as plane turbulent gravity currents. Then we propose a two-phase model describing powder-snow avalanches as turbulent bi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Glaciology
Main Authors: Scheiwiller, Thomas, Hutter, Kolumban
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1983
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000008339
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000008339
Description
Summary:Abstract The paper of which this is an extended abstract reviews theoretical formulations for flow and airborne powder-snow avalanches. First powder-snow avalanches are considered as plane turbulent gravity currents. Then we propose a two-phase model describing powder-snow avalanches as turbulent binary mixtures of snow granules and air. An analogy is postulated between flow avalanches and the rapid shear flow of granular materials which leads to a non-polar continuum with microstructure taking into account the fluctuation energy of the snow granules.