Production and decay of random kinetic energy in granular snow
avalanches Authors: Buser, Othmar; Bartelt, Perry Source:
Journal of Glaciology, Volume 55, Number 189, February 2009 ,
pp. 3-12(10) Publisher: International Glaciological Society
Abstract:Any model of snow avalanches must be able to reproduce
velocity profiles. This is a key problem in avalanche science
because the profiles are the result of a multitude of snow/ice
particle interactions that, in the end, define the rheology of
flowing snow. Recent measurements on real-scale avalanches show
that the velocity profiles change from a highly sheared profile
at the avalanche front to a plug-like profile at the avalanche
tail, preventing the application of a single, simple rheology to
the avalanche problem. In this paper, we model not only the
velocity profiles but also the evolution of the velocity
profiles, by taking into account the production and decay of the
kinetic energy of the random motion of the snow granules. We
find that the generation of th