Visualization of dominant stress-transfer mechanisms in experimental debris flows of different particle-size distribution

Physical modelling of debris flow in a small-scale flume has been carried out to investigate the internal stress-transfer mechanisms within unsteady, saturated, and segregating granular free-surface flows. Measurements of the internal velocity fields within model flows were obtained via planar laser–induced fluorescence and particle image velocimetry. Normalized velocity profiles taken at a section over the flow duration were found to essentially collapse onto a single curve, the shape of which was dependent on the particle-size distribution. While all flows exhibited internal basal slip and shear, for tests on well-graded materials that are most representative of debris flows, the shear rate was found to reduce towards the surface to near-zero, exhibiting near plug-flow. Dimensional analysis shows that particles of different size within these flows experienced different dominant stress-transfer mechanisms — frictional, collisional or viscous. Rapid grain-size segregation therefore is both due to and results in different modes of stress transfer within a single flow. This means that in a segregating and hence, stratified system, different flow regimes will act concurrently at microscale and mesoscale. Results highlight the complexity of debris flows, so that it may be undesirable to ascribe a single microscale constitutive behaviour throughout, and further calls into question the concept of flow regimes for debris flows based on bulk measurements.