Snowpack properties associated with fracture initiation and propagation resulting in skier-triggered dry snow slab avalanches

Herwijnen, A. van; Jamieson, Bruce

doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2007.02.004

Cited by 66 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…3 for four slab markers. As explained in van Herwijnen and Jamieson (2005), the time delay between the onset of movement between markers is proportional to the distance between the markers and was used to calculate the propagation speed c of the fracture (see also Appendix A).…”

Section: Pst Field Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the winter of 2004-2005, we collected data from 121 PST experiments at 46 different sites in Canada, USA and Switzerland (van Herwijnen and Jamieson, 2005;van Herwijnen and Heierli, 2009;van Herwijnen et al, 2010;Bair et al, 2012;Birkeland et al, 2014). At each site, we collected a manual snow pro- Figure 2.…”

Section: Pst Field Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The black dots are markers used for particle tracking in order to measure the displacement of the slab. The column length is denoted L. Adapted from van Herwijnen et al (2010). file and conducted one or several PSTs according to the procedure outlined in Greene et al (2004).…”

Section: Pst Field Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This field method has highlighted the importance of slab bending (due to the collapsible nature of weak snow layers) on crack propagation (e.g. van Herwijnen et al, 2010;. On the other hand, theoretical and numerical models, based on fracture mechanics or strength of material approaches, were developed to investigate crack propagation and avalanche release (McClung, 1979;Chiaia et al, 2008;Gaume et al, 2013Gaume et al, , 2014b.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the past decade, our understanding of the fracture process in snow has gradually evolved through the development of new theories as well as various field observations and experiments. The propagation saw test (PST), concurrently developed in Canada (van Herwijnen and Jamieson, 2005;Gauthier and Jamieson, 2006) and Switzerland (Sigrist and Schweizer, 2007), consists in isolating a snow column and initiating a crack of increasing length in the weak layer with a snow saw until the onset of rapid self-propagation of the crack. The PST allows observers to determine the critical crack length and evaluate crack propagation propensity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling of crack propagation in weak snowpack layers using the discrete element method

Gaume¹,

Herwijnen²,

Chambon

et al. 2015

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. Dry-snow slab avalanches are generally caused by a sequence of fracture processes including (1) failure initiation in a weak snow layer underlying a cohesive slab, (2) crack propagation within the weak layer and (3) tensile fracture through the slab which leads to its detachment. During the past decades, theoretical and experimental work has gradually led to a better understanding of the fracture process in snow involving the collapse of the structure in the weak layer during fracture. This now allows us to better model failure initiation and the onset of crack propagation, i.e., to estimate the critical length required for crack propagation. On the other hand, our understanding of dynamic crack propagation and fracture arrest propensity is still very limited.To shed more light on this issue, we performed numerical propagation saw test (PST) experiments applying the discrete element (DE) method and compared the numerical results with field measurements based on particle tracking. The goal is to investigate the influence of weak layer failure and the mechanical properties of the slab on crack propagation and fracture arrest propensity. Crack propagation speeds and distances before fracture arrest were derived from the DE simulations for different snowpack configurations and mechanical properties. Then, in order to compare the numerical and experimental results, the slab mechanical properties (Young's modulus and strength) which are not measured in the field were derived from density. The simulations nicely reproduced the process of crack propagation observed in field PSTs. Finally, the mechanical processes at play were analyzed in depth which led to suggestions for minimum column length in field PSTs.

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Section: Pst Field Datamentioning

confidence: 99%