Surface oscillations in channeled snow flows

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates surface oscillations in channeled snow flows, demonstrating that these oscillations originate from the top and persist throughout the channel, validating a Saint-Venant shallow water model.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental velocity profiles and friction laws for snow flows, and validates a Saint-Venant model for describing surface oscillations in such flows.

Findings

Velocity depends linearly on vertical position

Friction coefficient is a polynomial in velocity and thickness

Surface oscillations originate from the top and persist downstream

Abstract

An experimental device has been built to measure velocity profiles and friction laws in channeled snow flows. The measurements show that the velocity depends linearly on the vertical position in the flow and that the friction coefficient is a first-order polynomial in velocity (u) and thickness (h) of the flow. In all flows, oscillations on the surface of the flow were observed throughout the channel and measured at the location of the probes. The experimental results are confronted with a shallow water approach. Using a Saint-Venant modeling, we show that the flow is effectively uniform in the streamwise direction at the measurement location. We show that the surface oscillations produced by the Archimedes's screw at the top of the channel persist throughout the whole length of the channel and are the source of the measured oscillations. This last result provides good validation of the description of such channeled snow flows by a Saint-Venant modeling.