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Lecture

Snow Mechanics: Avalanches

In course

ENV-525: Physics and hydrology of snow

This course covers principles of snow physics, snow hydrology, snow-atmosphere interaction, and snow modeling. It transmits detailed understanding of physical processes within the snow and at its interfaces with the atmosphere and the ground, and presents ...

Description

This lecture covers the physical processes of snow mechanics related to avalanche formation, including slab avalanche release processes, basic concepts of mechanics such as stress and strain, failure initiation with stability indices and strength of weak layers, crack propagation, and the UCLA/Disney Snow model.

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Instructors (3)

Wolf Hendrik Huwald

Dr. Hendrik Huwald is a scientist at the Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (CRYOS) and a lecturer at the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Section (SSIE) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He completed his PhD in 2003 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), developing a numerical model for sea ice and studying energy transfer processes in the Arctic. Between 2005 and 2012 he was a post-doctoral fellow and scientist at the Laboratory of Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology (EFLUM) of EPFL working on Alpine snow-atmosphere interaction, and energy balance-related research mainly in mountain regions. During this time, he designed, led and participated in numerous large field experiments in different environments. In 2013 he joined the newly founded CRYOS laboratory where he conducted research in the domains of snow science, hydrology, boundary layer meteorology and environmental sensing. He has extensive experience with project management both on national and international level.

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume

I started my scientific career in 2008 at the Grenoble University in the IRSTEA laboratory where I did my master's thesis on the rheology of dense granular materials using the discrete element method. In the same lab, I followed with a PhD on the numerical modeling of the release depth of extreme avalanches using a combined mechanical-statistical approach and spatial extreme statistics. In 2013 I obtained a postdoc position at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos where I was in charge of developing and applying numerical models to improve the evaluation of avalanche release conditions and thus avalanche forecasting. While my PhD was mostly theoretical and numerical, my postdoc in Davos allowed me to gain a practical expertise by participating in laboratory and field experiments which helped to validate the models I develop. In 2016, I was awarded a SNF grant to work as a research and teaching associate in CRYOS at EPFL on the multiscale modeling of snow and avalanche processes. I developed discrete approaches to model snow micro-structure deformation and failure in order to evaluate constitutive snow models to be used at a larger scale in continuum models. I also developed numerical models for wind-driven snow transport. In 2017, I was a Visiting Scholar at UCLA to work on a Material Point Method (MPM) to simulate both the initiation and propagation of snow avalanches in a unified manner. The UCLA MPM model was initially developed for the Disney movie "Frozen" and has been modified and enriched based on Critical State Soil Mechanics to model the release and flow of slab avalanches. The results of this collaboration have been published in Nature Communications. In 2018, I was awarded the SNF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship and became professor at EPFL and head of SLAB, the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory. At SLAB, we study micro-mechanical failure and fracture propagation of porous brittle solids, with applications in snow slab avalanche release. We also simulate avalanche dynamics and flow regime transitions over complex 3D terrain through the development of new models (depth-resolved and depth-averaged) based on MPM.In 2020, I obtained a SPARK grant to develop a new approach to simulate and better understand complex process chains in gravitational mass movements, including permafrost instabilities, rock, snow and ice avalanches and transitions to debris flows.

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Related concepts (19)

Infinitesimal strain theory

In continuum mechanics, the infinitesimal strain theory is a mathematical approach to the description of the deformation of a solid body in which the displacements of the material particles are assumed to be much smaller (indeed, infinitesimally smaller) than any relevant dimension of the body; so that its geometry and the constitutive properties of the material (such as density and stiffness) at each point of space can be assumed to be unchanged by the deformation.

Ring strain

In organic chemistry, ring strain is a type of instability that exists when bonds in a molecule form angles that are abnormal. Strain is most commonly discussed for small rings such as cyclopropanes and cyclobutanes, whose internal angles are substantially smaller than the idealized value of approximately 109°. Because of their high strain, the heat of combustion for these small rings is elevated. Ring strain results from a combination of angle strain, conformational strain or Pitzer strain (torsional eclipsing interactions), and transannular strain, also known as van der Waals strain or Prelog strain.

Stress–strain curve

In engineering and materials science, a stress–strain curve for a material gives the relationship between stress and strain. It is obtained by gradually applying load to a test coupon and measuring the deformation, from which the stress and strain can be determined (see tensile testing). These curves reveal many of the properties of a material, such as the Young's modulus, the yield strength and the ultimate tensile strength. Generally speaking, curves representing the relationship between stress and strain in any form of deformation can be regarded as stress–strain curves.

Finite strain theory

In continuum mechanics, the finite strain theory—also called large strain theory, or large deformation theory—deals with deformations in which strains and/or rotations are large enough to invalidate assumptions inherent in infinitesimal strain theory. In this case, the undeformed and deformed configurations of the continuum are significantly different, requiring a clear distinction between them. This is commonly the case with elastomers, plastically-deforming materials and other fluids and biological soft tissue.

Strain (chemistry)

In chemistry, a molecule experiences strain when its chemical structure undergoes some stress which raises its internal energy in comparison to a strain-free reference compound. The internal energy of a molecule consists of all the energy stored within it. A strained molecule has an additional amount of internal energy which an unstrained molecule does not. This extra internal energy, or strain energy, can be likened to a compressed spring.

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