Powder snow avalanches: Approximation as non-Boussinesq clouds with a Richardson number-dependent entrainment function

Kulikovskiy–Sveshnikova–Beghin model of powder snow avalanches: Development and application

[1] A simple theoretical model, the Kulikovskiy–Sveshnikova–Beghin (KSB) model, is outlined, describing the motion of a particle cloud moving down an incline. This model includes both the entrainment of surrounding ambient fluid and the entrainment of particles from the slope and is equally valid for Boussinesq and non-Boussinesq flows. However, this model can predict physically impossible dens...

Numerical simulations of dense clouds on steep slopes: Application to powder-snow avalanches

In this paper two-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of dense clouds moving down steep slopes are presented for the first time. The results obtained are in good agreement with the overall characteristics – that is, the spatial growth rate and velocity variations – of clouds studied in the laboratory. Direct numerical simulations give, in addition to the overall flow structure, local...

Simulation of Mixture Flows : Pollution Spreading and Powder–Snow Avalanches

We are concerned with the numerical simulation of certain multi-fluids flows, which in particular arise in the modeling of pollutant spreading and powder–snow avalanches. The behavior of the mixture is described through a single mass density and a velocity field, with an unusual constraint that relates the divergence of the velocity to derivatives of the density. We propose a numerical scheme b...

Frontal dynamics of powder snow avalanches Supplementary online material

Its gradient along a streamline is “favorable” (∂pus/∂s) < 0 for y > b′ − x, and “adverse” (∂pus/∂s) > 0 for y < b′ − x. On the interface where ψ = 0 and r = b′θ/ sin θ, pus(ψ = 0) vanishes at x = b′/2 ahead of the source (θ ' 10π/27), and is always < 0 downstream of that point. Because the interface has favorable pressure gradient until θ = θf ' 13π/20, and adverse ∀θ > θf , it is convenient t...

Snow Avalanches, Ice Avalanches and Glacier Surges