Mathematical modeling of powder-snow avalanche flows

Abstract

Powder-snow avalanches are violent natural disasters which represent a major risk for infrastructures and populations in mountain regions. In this study we present a novel model for the simulation of avalanches in the aerosol regime. The second scope of this study is to get more insight into the interaction process between an avalanche and a rigid obstacle. An incompressible model of two miscible fluids can be successfully employed in this type of problems. We allow for mass diffusion between two phases according to the Fick's law. The governing equations are discretized with a contemporary fully implicit finite volume scheme. The solver is able to deal with arbitrary density ratios. Several numerical results are presented. Volume fraction, velocity and pressure fields are presented and discussed. Finally we point out how this methodology can be used for practical problems.

Keywords

Bibliographic record

BibTeX Citation

@article{Dutykh2011mathematicalmodeling,
  author = {Dutykh, D. and Acary-Robert, C. and Bresch, D.},
  title = {Mathematical modeling of powder-snow avalanche flows},
  journal = {Studies in Applied Mathematics},
  year = {2011},
  volume = {127},
  number = {1},
  pages = {38--66},
  doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9590.2010.00511.x},
  abstract = {Powder-snow avalanches are violent natural disasters which represent a major risk for infrastructures and populations in mountain regions. In this study we present a novel model for the simulation of avalanches in the aerosol regime. The second scope of this study is to get more insight into the interaction process between an avalanche and a rigid obstacle. An incompressible model of two miscible fluids can be successfully employed in this type of problems. We allow for mass diffusion between two phases according to the Fick's law. The governing equations are discretized with a contemporary fully implicit finite volume scheme. The solver is able to deal with arbitrary density ratios. Several numerical results are presented. Volume fraction, velocity and pressure fields are presented and discussed. Finally we point out how this methodology can be used for practical problems.},
  keywords = {gravity-driven flow, Fick's law, miscible fluids, Mountain regions, Fluid dynamics, Multiphase flow, finite volumes, Incompressible flow, snow avalanche, Risk assessment, Natural disasters, Aerosol regime, Mass diffusion, Avalanche simulation, Mathematical modeling, Finite volume method, two-phase flow, Numerical simulation, Powder-snow avalanches, Rigid obstacles}
}