Article
Fluidisation by pore pressure of dense granular flows: numerical simulations versus experiments
Autor
Aravena, A.
Chupin, L.
Dubois, T.
Roche, O.
Institución
Resumen
A model accounting for fluidisation by pore gas pressure in dense granular flows is
presented. A viscoplastic rheology, based on the Drucker-Prager criterium, is used to describe
the granular medium which is a mixture of air and glass beads. The pore gas pressure, which
satisfies an advection-diffusion equation, reduces the friction between the particles and thus the
value of the apparent viscosity. As a consequence, dense fluidised granular flows can travel longer
distances. In laboratory experiments, the run-out distance reached by dense granular columns
when collapsing is almost doubled when fluidisation is applied. This fundamental result, in the
context of pyroclastic density currents, is reproduced by numerical simulations performed with
the fluidised model.