A Correction of the Friction Term in Depth-Averaged Granular Flow Models Related to the Motion/Stop Criterion

Abstract

In the pioneer work of Savage and Hutter [ 7] the first depth-averaged model for granular landslides was proposed written in local coordinates over a reference plane. From then, there has been proposed a hugh amount of variations, corrections and generalizations. In particular, for their impact in real applications, we mention the work developed in [ 1] to include the topography curvature effects and the new friction law proposed in [ 6] to better reproduce the spread of the granular mass through a velocity dependent friction coefficient. In [ 3] a correction of the friction law has been proposed in order to improve the motion/stop criterion in terms of the repose angle of the material. This correction have any influence for uniform flows, nevertheless, it plays an important role in case of a free surface not parallel to the reference plane. In this work we show two new applications of this model to relevant situations. In the first one we show the influence of the correction on the spread area of the avalanche over variable topography. In the second one a comparison with experimental data of a submarine avalanche is presented.