Planar collapse of a submerged granular column

Abstract

Submerged mass flows are commonly considered a natural geohazard that interacts with terrestrial and submarine infrastructure and communities and are linked to the generation of tsunamis. Previous studies have investigated submerged mass flows by means of the benchmark case of a granular column collapse. This study explores the mobility and collapse dynamics of submerged granular columns within a planar configuration as a function of the column aspect ratio a. The use of a planar configuration allows the monitoring of the moving mass and its deformation patterns and provides a novel insight into the particle-fluid interactions at release and during collapse not possible before. Special attention was devoted to the column saturation and release mechanism. The column mobility is observed to be directly controlled by a and is linked to a clear distinction between triangular and trapezoidal deposits. The column collapse is found to be described by two characteristic times, marking transition points through the collapse stages. The associated deformation patterns reflect both at a column scale and at localized particle groups during collapse, reflecting in the velocity scaling of a deformable and moving granular mass and the occasional ejection of particles at its surface. We observed that the area of the released portion decreases during collapse and converge toward an equivalent portion of surface particles with little influence by a. The experimental results provide a novel insight into the study of submerged mass flows and set a reference behavior for future numerical validations.