Front velocity and deposition characteristics of debris avalanches using physical modeling test

Physical modeling test was designed to study the effects of slope angle, released volume, and type of materials on the front velocity and deposition characteristics of debris avalanches. An improved empirical prediction model of front velocity was proposed for quantitatively describing the characteristic of front velocity according to staged motion feature of mass-front particles of debris avalanches. In view of the overall variation tendency of velocity curve, the calculated curves of the front velocity agree well with the experimental curves and the average error of the maximum velocity and average velocity are 5.72% and 4.34% respectively. The practicability of the empirical prediction of front velocity was further verified by carrying out 3 new groups of physical modeling test. With regard to the deposition characteristics, the change of deposit shape reflects the variation characteristic of deposit thickness along the median longitudinal section. The center-of-mass coordinate of deposit shape might be a useful indicator for quantitative analysis of the change of deposit shape. Finally, an empirical formula was also proposed for describing the mathematical relationships between center-of-mass coordinate of deposit shape and parameter indicators of the influence factors.