Abstract
Rock avalanches are the largest granular flows on Earth. In contrast to artificial, small-scale granular avalanches, they exhibit a large degree of fragmentation with reduction of average grain volume by a factor of up to 1015–1018. Even though fragmentation likely affects the whole dynamics of the rock avalanche, as yet the basic mechanics of the process is poorly known. In this work, a simple model is presented for the fragmentation of rock avalanches, assuming that most of the fragmentation occurs along force chains in the granular medium. The landslide motion is simulated along a curved bumpy profile path. The predicted grain spectra are found to agree reasonably with field data.
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De Blasio, F.V., Crosta, G.B. Simple physical model for the fragmentation of rock avalanches. Acta Mech 225, 243–252 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-013-0942-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-013-0942-y