1D Mathematical modelling of debris flow

Abstract

Debris flow is modelled using the equations governing the dynamics of a liquid-solid mixture. An upwind finite volume scheme is applied to solve the resulting differential equations in one dimension. These equations have a structure similar to those of the monophasic water flow, differing from them by the presence of some terms characteristic of the bifasic nature of the mixture, such as granular bed erosion velocity, sediment concentration, bed shear stress, etc. The model and the system of equations to be solved are presented with the description of the implementation of the upwind scheme for the resulting hyperbolic conservation system. The numerical method is first order in both space and time. The treatment of the source terms is specified in detail and some comparison with laboratory experiments are presented.