Saint-Venant Equations and Friction Law for Modelling Self-Channeling Granular Flows: From Analogue to Numerical Simulation

Abstract

Rock avalanches are catastrophic events involving important granular rock masses (>106 m3) and traveling long distances. In exceptional cases, the runout can reach up to tens of kilometers. Even if they are highly destructive and uncontrollable events, they give important insights to understand interactions between the displaced masses and landscape conditions. However, those events are not frequent. Therefore, the analogue and numerical modelling gives fundamental inputs to better understand their behavior. The objective of the research is to understand the propagation and spreading of granular mass released at the top of a simple geometry. The flow is unconfined, spreading freely along a 45˚ slope and deposit on a horizontal surface. The evolution of this analogue rock avalanche was measured from the initiation to its deposition with high speed camera. To simulate the analogue granular flow, a numerical model based on the continuum mechanics approach and the solving of ...