Effects of debris flow rheology on overflow and impact dynamics against dual-rigid barriers

Abstract

It is well recognised that the rheology of an interstitial fluid has profound effects on debris flow dynamics. Existing design guidelines for multiple resisting barriers, however, do not consider the rheological behaviour of debris flows explicitly while estimating barrier spacing. A modified overflow equation is proposed, considering an improved overflow trajectory and a new yield stress-based velocity attenuation model, to estimate the overflow distance in two-phase flows. This study experimentally investigates the effects of yield stress of an interstitial fluid on the impact behaviour of two-phase flows with similar Froude numbers against dual-rigid barriers. The flow composition is varied to model a wide range of natural flows based on dimensionless yield stress. The results reveal that the hydrodynamic impact coefficient increases with increasing dimensionless yield stress and exceeds the existing international design guidelines by more than 13%. The existing guidelines underestimate the overflow distance by up to 115%. The modified formulation is verified and conservatively predicts overflow distance for water floods to debris flows. It is recommended that the dimensionless yield stress of interstitial fluid together with Froude number should be used to characterise the impact and overflow dynamics of two-phase flow for a conservative design of dual barriers.