Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86 – 96

www.elsevier.com/locate/coldregions

Impact of a snow avalanche against an obstacle.

Formation of shock waves
M.E. Eglit a,⁎, V.S. Kulibaba a , M. Naaim b
a
Mech. and Math. Department, Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119992, Russia
b
Snow Engineering and Avalanche Control Devision, CEMAGREF, 2 rue de la Papeterie BP76 38402 Saint Martin d'Heres, France
Received 7 September 2006; accepted 15 June 2007

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the effect of compressibility of the avalanche snow impacting an obstacle. Compression shocks
generated by obstacle cause high pressure peaks at first instants of impact. That is why the account of compressibility is essential
for the understanding of measurements and the design of structures. The main problem in calculation compression shocks in
avalanches is to formulate an equation of state for moving snow in impact. Two different types of equations of state are proposed
depending on the type of the avalanche (low-density and high-density flows). The approach is not totally new. It was earlier
proposed mainly in Russian literature. Here a brief review of the previous work is given with discussion of some gaps in it. The
theory is reformulated and further developed to account thermodynamical equations. The simplest case of a normal compression
shock in an avalanche flow is studied. Examples of estimations of pressure and density behind a shock are given. It is important to
emphasize that the Mach number plays an important role in the theory of compressible flows so it should be taken into account
(together with the Froude number) in calculation and modelling an avalanche impact pressure.
© 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Snow avalanches; Obstacles; Impact; Compression shock waves; Equation of state

1. Introduction hydraulic jump in water flow. If the flow suddenly

Two types of phenomena may be termed shock
waves in avalanche dynamics.
(1) Shocks of the first type are observed in flows with
an open (free) upper surface. They are just a sud-
den increase in the flow depth. One example is a
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: eglit@mech.math.msu.su (M.E. Eglit),
kulibaba-v@yandex.ru (V.S. Kulibaba),
mohamed.naaim@cemagref.grenoble.fr (M. Naaim).
0165-232X/$ - see front matter © 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.
doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2007.06.005
meets, e.g., a high wall that prevents it from going
ahead then the fluid splashes up along the wall and
stops (because of gravity). The subsequent parts of
the flow in turn meet the stopped material in front of
them and also pile up, so the zone of increased
depth propagates upstream. The depth behind the
shock may be significantly larger than the depth
in front of it. The Froude number is the main
dimensionless parameter that characterizes flows
with hydraulic jumps. “Hydraulic” jumps in gran-
ular flows have been studied by Savage (1979),
Gray et al. (2003), Hakonardottir (2004), Hakonar-
dottir and Hogg (2005).
 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
“Hydraulic” jumps can occur in flows of various
media, both compressible and incompressible.
However usually compressibility is not taken into
account in calculations of hydraulic jumps though
there is a remark in the paper by Hakonardottir
(2004) that compressibility is responsible for the
measured height of jumps in granular materials
being less than that predicted by the theory of jumps
in incompressible flows.
(2) Shocks of the second type are essentially con-
nected with the compressibility of the flowing
snow. If an avalanche meets an obstacle and the
moving snow cannot escape anywhere, then it is
forced to be compressed and its density and
pressure increase significantly. The boundary
between com-pressed material and the undis-
turbed flow is a shock wave. Such shocks are
called compression shocks in this paper. The
pressure behind this shock determines the force on
the obstacle at the instant of the impact. This is the
maximum value of the force. At an open surface
of the flow the pressure is maintained to be
atmospheric. A compression shock wave propa-
gates from the obstacle, meets an open surface,
where it is reflected as a rarefaction wave de-
creasing the flow density and pressure. This is
why the time interval rt during which the obstacle
feels the large pressure is usually short (a fraction
of a second). It equals the time needed for the
compression wave to reach an open surface plus
the time for the rarefaction wave to come back to
the obstacle. The value rt depends on the depth
and width of the flow, dimensions of the obstacle,
and on the relative speed of propagation of the
shock. The latter is always larger than the sound
velocity in the flow, a. When the rarefaction wave
reaches the obstacle, the wave is again reflected
by it as a rarefaction wave and the pressure at the
obstacle becomes lower than the pressure in the
flow before the impact. This new rarefaction wave
is reflected by open surfaces of the flow as a
compression wave, and so on. Due to the process
of subsequent reflections of waves the pressure at
the obstacle is oscillating and decreasing due to
interactions and energy dissipation.
Both types of shocks occur when an avalanche meets
a high obstacle: the moving snow splashes up and
compression shocks appear inside the flow. The goal of
this paper is estimation of the effect of compression
shocks. Compressibility of snow is ignored in most of
the snow avalanche models. Probably it is caused by
87
difficulties in flow density measuring. Until now there
are only estimates of the flow density and measurements
of density in deposits. The density in deposits usually is
essentially larger than the flow density (up to two times
for dense avalanches). The flow density changes at
impact. This effect should be taken into account in
calculation and modelling avalanche impact pressure.
A principal point in modelling compressible flows
is formulation of the equation of state for moving snow
which in fact is a mixture of ice and air. The equation of
state depends on the type of an avalanche and even can be
different for different parts of an avalanche if it consists of
a powder layer, saltation layer and dense layer. Below we
consider two types of the flow. One type is powder
avalanches and low-density dry avalanches with the
densities ρ less then 100−150 kg m− 3 (Section 3). In
powder snow avalanches with ρ = 5 ρa–20 ρa (ρa is the air
density) the snow particle size is of the order of 0.001 m;
the average spacing between centers of particles is about
6–3.5 particle diameters. In low-density dry avalanches
with ρ = 30 ρa–150 ρa the diameter of snow clods may be
of the order of 0.001 m and the average spacing between
their centers is about 2.4–1.4 diameters (Gauer et al.,
2007). Both for powder snow avalanches and low-density
dry avalanches we can assume that particles do not have
permanent contacts with each other, and the snow-air
mixture behaves like a mixture of two gases (air and gas of
particles).
In dense avalanches with the values of density larger
than 200 kg m− 3 snow particles strongly interact with
each other. In this case the concept of a “particle gas” is
not applicable. An equation of state in the form used in
the theory of compression shocks in condensed matter
can be tried for such flows (Section 4).
2. Compression shocks
A system of compression shocks appears in an
avalanche at an impact against an obstacle. The spatial
picture of waves depends on geometry and dimensions of
both the obstacle and the flow, and is changing in time
because the waves propagate inside the flow and interact
with the flow boundaries. To obtain a 3D picture of waves
in the flow around an obstacle in theory one should first
write a system of governing partial differential equations
and then conduct numerical simulations. This paper does
not contain a solution of a three-dimensional unsteady
problem. Our aim is to attract the attention of the re-
searchers to a necessity of account of the flow com-
pressibility and to give rough estimates of possible
pressure peaks acting on obstacles due to formation of
shock waves. To this end we consider only the simplest
88 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
Fig. 1. The sketch of a flow with a shock wave. Dashed line — the
front of a rarefaction wave.
case of the normal shock wave which in fact is met in
many situations, see Fig. 1. Let, e.g., the obstacle be a
wide high wall located perpendicular to the avalanche
flow (e.g., a catching dam). Consider a layer, that is
neither very close to the bottom nor to the flow free
surface. Let's study a short time period after the instant of
impact of the avalanche front against the wall so that the
reflected waves did not reach the part of the wall in study
yet. Then the influence of both the bottom and the free
boundary of the flow can be neglected. Assume that a) the
flow velocity and density profiles in the layer are
homogeneous, b) gravity can be neglected. Then the
flow is one-dimensional, and the shock wave that appears
at the instant of the impact is parallel to the wall and
propagates upstream, see Fig. 1. The snow velocity in the
domain between the shock and the obstacle equals zero.
The relations that follow from the mass and momen-
tum conservation across the shock are
q0 ðt þ DÞ ¼ qD; q0 ðt þ DÞ2 ¼ qD2 þ σxx0 σxx: ð1Þ
Here ρ0, v, σxx0 are the flow density, velocity and the
normal component of the stress tensor in front of the
shock, the x-axis is normal to the wall and directed to it;
ρ, σxx are the density and the normal stress behind the
shock; D is the upstream velocity of the shock. The
absolute value of the normal force acting on a unit area
of the obstacle at the instant of the impact is |σxx|.
The value F of an additional normal force acting on a
unit area of the obstacle due to avalanche impact is the
difference between |σxx| and the atmospheric pressure
patm that acted on it before the impact:
F ¼ jσxx j Patm

The flow parameters ahead of the shock, i.e., ρ0, v,
σxx0, are supposed to be known. The two relations (1)
contain three unknown parameters D, ρ, σxx, so at least
one additional equation is needed to calculate F.
Eliminating the unknown ρ we can obtain the
following formula for F
F ¼ Dσxx þ q0 wt; ð2Þ
where w = v + D is the shock speed relatively to the flow
and Dσxx = |σxx0| − patm. Neglecting the gravity we can
assume that in an undisturbed flow
σxx0 ¼ patm ; i:e:; Dσxx ¼ 0 ð3Þ
(note that by definition pressure corresponds to a negative
stress). In this case the formula (2) takes the form
F ¼ q0 wt ð4Þ
Account of gravity leads to additional terms in
formulae (3), (4). We can write approximately
σxx0 ¼ ðpatm þ q0 ghz Þ
where hz is the depth of the layer in consideration. Then
at the instant of impact we have
Dσxx ¼ q0 ghz ; F ¼ q0 ghz þ q0 wv
Typically at the first stage of an impact the force
connected with gravity is only a few percents of the total
force both in natural flows and especially in small scale
experimental flows, and we will not take it into account
in what follows.
Eliminating the unknown D in the system (1) at the
same condition about σxx as in (3) we obtain
q
F¼ q0 t2 ð5Þ
q q0
If the value of the density behind the shock ρ could
be found from certain additional equations, or if the
value of the relative shock speed w = v + D could be
estimated then we could calculate the impact force. It is
known that for weak shocks w is very close to the flow
sound speed a. The latter depends on the flow density
and pressure but not on the flow velocity. Therefore, if
the shock is weak and the pressure in the flow is just the
atmospheric pressure patm then the approximate formula
for the impact force per unit area is
Fcq0 at; ð6Þ
 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96 89

Table 1
Typical ϕ, Γ and ζ values
ρ 10 ρa 20 ρa 30 ρa 40 ρa 50 ρa 100 ρa 150 ρa
ϕ 0.90123 0.95130 0.96799 0.97633 0.98134 0.99124 0.99458
Γ 1.01399 1.00666 1.00433 1.00318 1.00250 1.00117 1.00072
ζ 0.01229 0.02594 0.03960 0.05325 0.06691 0.13516 0.20343
Low-density avalanches.

the force depends on the flow velocity linearly. This
fact is in accordance with measurements obtained by
Isaenko, Marin and Yadroshnikov (1970).
For strong shocks (ρ ≫ ρ0)
q 1
c1 ð7Þ
q q0
and the relation (5) can be simplified to obtain the
following simple expression for the force F per unit area
of the obstacle:
F ¼ q0 t 2
ð8Þ
This formula is often used in practice (Salm et al.,
1990; McClung and Schaerer, 1993; Lied and Kristen-
sen, 2003). Note however that it is not known in
advance whether the shock is weak or strong. To
calculate the parameters behind a shock we should use
the Eq. (1) complemented by some additional relations.
These additional relations are 1) the energy equation
across the shock and 2) constitutive equations for
flowing and stopped snow. The constitutive equations
should describe the behavior of the material in the
process of impact. The pressure plays the main role in
the first stage of the process, the shear stresses can be
neglected. In the following we consider two types of
constitutive equations depending on the type of the
avalanche, namely, for dry low-density and high-density
avalanches.
3. Powder and light dry avalanche. A gas model
In this section, we follow the approach that was
proposed by Shurova and Yakimov (Briukhanov et al.,
1967; Shurova and Yakimov, 1970; Shurova, 1984), see
also (Bozhinskiy and Losev, 1987). We analyze the
assumptions used in these papers and further develop the
theory paying more attention to thermo-dynamics, that is
definitely necessary for the theory of compressible flows.
The flowing material in an avalanche is a mixture of
air and ice. The mixture density ρ is
mþ1
q¼ m 1

ð9Þ
q þq
a i
Here, the subscripts a and i indicate air and ice,
so that ρa, ρi are the air and ice densities, and m is the
ratio of air and ice mass concentrations in the mix-
ture, i.e.,
/
m¼ ;
/
where / is ice particle mass concentration, and the air
mass concentration is 1 − /. The relation between /, ρ,
ρa and ρi is:
qa
1 q
/¼ qa
ð10Þ
1 qi
Denote the volume concentration of ice particles by ζ
Vi q
f¼ ¼/
ð11Þ
V qi
Here Vi, V are solid component and mixture volumes,
respectively. Typical values of ρ, ϕ and ζ for powder
snow avalanches and low-density dry avalanches are
given in Table 1.
3.1. Remark
Particles in light dry avalanches may be not just
ice crystals but small clods consisting of ice and air
being reminders of a not fully disintegrated snowpack.
Then at the same flow density the particle volume
concentration ζp is not equal to ice volume concen-
tration ζ. This fact does not influence the theory if the
distances between particle are still large enough. If,
e.g., the flow density is about 100 kg/m3 , the clod size
is about 0.01 m, the clod density is about 400 kg/m 3
(see Gauer et al., 2007) then the volume fraction of
clods ζp is about 0.25, the average distance between
centers of clods is about 1.7 diameters, and the gas
model can be applied. It should be emphasized that
in all relations in this section ϕ and ζ mean mass
and volume concentrations of ice even if we have a
mixture of air and small clods since we do not dis-
tinguish the air that is out of particles from the air
inside particles: both are compressible and obey the
90 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
Clapeyron equation, while ice particles are considered
as incompressible.
The stresses in the mixture are described by a
pressure (viscosity can be neglected in the narrow zone
around a shock wave)
σxx ¼ p:
The following assumptions A1–A3 are further made.
They will be discussed later. A1) The pressure p in a
mixture is just the interstitial air pressure pa:
p ¼ pa :
A2) Velocities and temperatures of both air and ice
components do not differ from each other (an equilib-
rium flow).
A3) The Clapeyron equation is true for air
Pa ¼ Rqa Ta
where Ta is the air absolute temperature and R is the gas
constant of air, R = 287.05 J/(kg K). The formula relating
p, ρ and T follows from (9) and (13)
RT q
p¼ q ; or; in another form;
1 þ m1 mq
i contrary to the air particles, solid particles cross the
Rð1 /ÞT q
p¼
1 f
where pa, Ta are now denoted by p, T. Eq. (14) is an
equation of state for the mixture. This equation was
proposed in (Briukhanov et al., 1967). For parameters in
front of and behind the shock we can write
RT0 q0 RT q
p0 ¼ q0 ; p¼ q ð15Þ
1 þ m1 mq 1 þ m1 mq
i i
Relations (15) introduce the temperatures T0 and T.
The temperature T0 in front of the shock (in the
avalanche) is supposed to be known in advance, but the
air temperature behind the shock T is unknown. Hence,
some additional relations are still to be found. These
additional relations could be the energy equation across
the shock together with expressions for the mixture
internal energy. The theory proposed by Yakimov and
Shurova in aforementioned papers does not contain the
energy equation. Instead the authors suggest that
A4) The air temperature is not changed across a
shock wave
T ¼ T0
As an alternative to this condition they suggest that
A5) The air temperature ratio across the shock is
linked to the pressure ratio by the Poisson adiabat

g g 1
p
T ¼ T0 ð17Þ
p0
ð12Þ
where γ = 1.4 is the ratio of the specific heats for air.
The relation (16), or (17) together with (12), (15) can
close the system of jump conditions (1). Using these
equations, it is possible to calculate the pressure behind
the shock, and, therefore, the force acting on the
obstacle. Results of some calculations can be found in
(Shurova, 1984).
4. Discussion
1. It is shown in the theory of particle-laden flows that
the assumption A1 is reasonable if the particles are
ð13Þ not too small, i.e., their diameter being larger than a
few hundred of micrometers (Rudinger, 1980). This
is true for snow avalanches.
2. Assumption A2 needs to be discussed. First, the
vertical velocities of air and particles are different
due to sedimentation of particles. Second, the flow
ð14Þ just behind a shock front is always nonequilibrium:
shock front with negligible change in their velocity
because the time in which a particle crosses the shock
wave is much smaller than the relaxation time needed
to change its velocity substantially (Rudinger, 1980).
Some distance is required for particles to achieve a
new equilibrium with the moving air. However, if we
include this distance into the shock wave, and neglect
sedimentation in this rather narrow zone, then we can
regard the flow at both sides of the shock as being
equilibrium.
3. It is well known that the assumption A4 is not valid
for a pure gas even if shocks are weak and the
temperature variations are small (acoustic waves). It
pffiffiffi
gives a wrong value for the wave speed ( g times
less than the correct value for acoustic waves). The
reason is that the process of the particle's passage
through a shock is very fast while the heat transfer
that could equalize the gas temperature is slow;
therefore the process is better thought to be adiabatic
than isothermal. However an adiabatic particle-laden
flow can often be approximately treated as isothermal
(see, e.g., relations (19) and (20) below). This can be
done if the particle mass concentration / is large so
that the heat capacity of the particles is much larger
ð16Þ than the heat capacity of air inside the mixture. Then
 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96 91

the temperature change in air caused by compression The adiabatic speed of sound in mixture is
can be compensated by heat transfer from the sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
particles without significantly affecting the temper-


Ap Cp
ature of the latter (Rudinger, 1980). Of course, this is a¼ ¼

Aq s¼const qð1 fÞ
not the case just behind the shock front, but it is true
at the end of the shock zone (including the relaxation It can be seen from this formula that the equilibrium
distance). sound speed in low-density avalanches (ζ ≪ 1) is less
4. The assumption A5 for shocks in pure gas is not then that in air at the same value of the pressure since
valid. The correct relation (called the Rankine- Γ b γ and ρ N ρa, see Fig. 2.
Hugoniot adiabat) is derived using the equation of It is useful to note that according to the equation of state
energy across the shock. It is different from (17) (14) the relation between p and ρ in isothermal processes is
though the difference is not large for weak shocks
(with a small pressure ratio). For particle-gas pð 1 fÞ
¼ const: ð20Þ
mixtures neither the relation (17) nor the Rankine- q
Hugoniot adiabat are valid even for the gas
component since the energy exchange between air For avalanche flows in study Γ ≈ 1 so adiabatic and
and ice particles occurs during intersection of a shock isothermal relations (19) and (20) are close to each other.
wave. The energy equation across a shock is

The right way to derive the needed additional relations ðt þ DÞ2 D2 σxx0 σxx p p0
(instead of assuming rather arbitrary the assumptions like
þ E0 E¼ ¼

2 2 q0 q q q0
A4, A5) is to consider the equation of energy across the
ð21Þ
shock. To follow this way, the internal energy of the air-ice
mixture should be specified. The following formula for the pressure behind a
The internal energy E per unit mass of low-density shock is derived by use of Eqs. (1), (14), (18), (21)
air-ice mixture is sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
p CðC þ 1ÞM 2 16ð1 f0 Þ2
E ¼ ð1 /ÞcV T þ /ci T ¼ cVM T ð18Þ ¼1þ 1 þ 1 þ
p0 4ð 1 f 0 Þ 2 ð C þ 1Þ 2 M 2
Here ci is the specific heat for ice, and cV, cVM = (1 − ϕ)
cV + ϕci are the specific heats at constant volume for air Here M is the flow Mach number, M = v/a0, a0 is the
and mixture, respectively. The mixture specific heat at sound speed in the flow and ζ0 is the volume con-
constant pressure cpM is centration of ice in the flow. Note that the pressure ratio
depends on three dimensionless parameters, M, Γ and
cpM ¼ ð1 /Þcp þ /ci ¼ ð1 /ÞR þ cVM ζ0; Γ, in turn, depends on the specific heats of air and ice
and (as well as ζ0) on particles mass concentration /,
where cp = cV + R is the air specific heat at constant
pressure. The ratio of specific heats Γ for a mixture is

cpM δþm 1 þ δ/=ð1 /Þ

C¼ ¼g ¼g ;
cVM δg þ m 1 þ gδ/=ð1 /Þ

where γ = cp/cV is the ratio of specific heats for air, and

δ = ci/cp is the ratio of specific heats of ice and air, δ ∼ 2. If
ϕ = 0.8 then Γ = 1.02. Values of Γ for ice-air mixtures with
ϕ N 0.8 are very close to 1 (see Table 1).
The following relation between p and ρ in adiabatic
processes (i.e., processes with constant entropy s) is
derived from the energy conservation equation

pð 1 fÞ C
¼ const; where f¼/q=qi
ð19Þ
qC Fig. 2. The sound speed in avalanching snow; low-density avalanches.
92 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
Fig. 3. The ratio of the densities behind and in front of a shock. Low-
density avalanches.
i.e., on the flow density ρ0. It means, in particular, that,
strictly speaking, in physical modelling of an impact
with shock waves we need to have the same values of M,
Γ and ζ0 for natural and laboratory flows. However, as it
is seen from Table 1, in powder and light dry avalanches
with ρ b 100 kg m− 3 we can approximately assume
Cc1; 1 f0 c1; ð22Þ
so in fact there is only one essential dimensionless
parameter M.
Figs. 3–5 show the dependencies of the density ratio
ρ/ρ0, pressure ratio p/p0, and dimensionless speed of the
shock wave D/a0 on the flow Mach number M = v/a0 at
different values of the upstream density ρ0. The
following values of the air and ice parameters were
used in calculations
qa0 ¼ 1:25kg m 3 ; qi ¼ 916:7kg m 3 ;g ¼ 1:4;
cp ¼ 1005J kg 1 K 1
; ci ¼ 2170J kg 1 K 1 ; d ¼ 2:16:
Calculations were made for the values of the flow
densities ρ0, particle mass concentrations ϕ and ratios
Fig. 4. The ratio of the pressures behind and in front of a shock. Low-
density avalanches.
Fig. 5. The shock speed relative to the obstacle. Low-density avalanches.
of specific heats Γ in front of the shock that are written
in Table 1.
In Figs. 6 and 7 the dependencies of the pressure
behind the shock on the flow density at fixed values of
the initial pressure and initial flow velocity are plotted.
5. Compression shocks in dense avalanches
A model to describe an impact of a dense avalanche
against an obstacle has been proposed by Gonor and
Pik-Pichak (1983). They considered a homogeneous
flow with a given depth, density and velocity that
suddenly meets a wall located normal to the flow. The
height of the wall was assumed to be much larger than
the initial flow depth, and the gravity was neglected.
This can be done if we are interested in the first stage of
the process only. The unsteady motion of the fluid was
studied. In particular, the variation of the open surface of
Fig. 6. Pressure ratio p/p0 versus flow density ρ0; p0 = 100 kPa. Low-
density avalanches.
 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96 93

where s and V = 1/ρ are the entropy and volume per unit
mass, respectively. The relation (25) is valid both for
ideal and viscous fluids, and for ideal fluids it is just a
combination of the first and the second laws of
thermodynamics. Assume that E = E(V, T ), p = p(V, T ).
Then we may rewrite the relation (25) as


1 AE 1 AE
ds ¼ þ p dV þ dT

T AV T AT

Since ds is a total differential of s, the following

identity should hold




A 1 AE A 1 AE
¼ þp
AV T AT AT T AV
Fig. 7. Pressure ratio p/p0 versus flow velocity; p0 = 100 kPa. Low-
density avalanches. or
Ap AE
p T þ ¼0 ð26Þ
the flow with time, and the distribution of pressure at the AT AV
wall for various instants were calculated. The numerical Using the relation (23) we have
scheme did not include an explicit study of shock waves
though the obtained distribution of the pressure in the Ap Ap AE
¼ ¼ kcV q
avalanche body contains zones with the sharp variation AT AE AT
of p that can be interpreted as shock waves.
The equation of state suggested by Gonor and Pik- where cV ¼ AEðAT T;V Þ
is the heat capacity at constant
Pichak (1983) is volume that is further assumed to be constant. The
relation (26) takes the form


q
p ¼ p0 f þ kqE ð23Þ AE
q0 ¼ p þ kcV q ¼ kqE þ kcV q p0 f
AV
Here p0, ρ0 are pressure and density in the flow Solving this differential equation for E we come to (24).
before an impact, E is the internal energy density and k The values of the coefficients k1, k2, k, k0 are to be set
is a constant coefficient. This form of equation of state is using data of measurements. Isaenko and Yadroshnikov
similar to the so-called Mi-Gruneisen equation that is
commonly used in calculations of shocks in condensed
matter (Zeldovich and Raiser, 1966; Kanel et al., 2004).
The function f is proposed to be taken in the form


2
q q
f ¼ k0 þ k1 1 þ k2 1 ;
q0 q0

ρ, ρ0 are the flow density and its initial value, k1, k2, k0
are empirical constants. The formula for E(T, V ) is
Z V
p
E ¼ cV T Vk fdV ð24Þ
V k V0

where V = 1/ρ, T is the mixture absolute temperature,

and cV is its specific heat capacity. This formula can be
derived in the following way. Consider the thermody-
namical Gibbs' identity
dE þ pdV ¼ Tds
Fig. 8. The pressure behind a shock vs. density behind the shock. Dots –
experiments by Isaenko and Yadroshnikov, line – approximation by
Rankine-Hugoniot adiabat for an avalanche flow. p0 = 100 kPa,
ð25Þ ρ0 = 294 kg m− 3.
94 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96

mate the experimental curves by the Rankine-Hugoniot

shock adiabat for a mixture derived by the jump
conditions (1), (21), and the state Eq. (23):



k q q
p 1 1 ¼ p0 ð 1 k0 Þ
2 q0
0 q
q
þ p0 f

q0 
kp0 q
þ 1 ð28Þ
2 q0

Here p, ρ, p0, ρ0 are the values of the pressure and

density behind and in front of the shock. Approximation
of experimental data of Isaenko and Yadroshnikov
Fig. 9. Pressure ratio vs. Mach number. Dense avalanches. (1972) by the relation (28) gives the following values of
p0 = 100 kPa, ρ0 = 294 kg m− 3.
k, k0, k1, k2, see Fig. 8
k1 ¼ 5:5; k2 ¼ 10; k ¼ 0:5; k0 ¼ 0:5: ð29Þ
(1972) presented results of experiments on dynamic
compression of snow, see Fig. 8. Gonor and Pik-Pichak The adiabatic sound velocity in the flow with p = p0,
(1983) approximated the experimental plots assuming ρ = ρ0 is
that the process of dynamic compression was iso- sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
thermal. They proposed the following values of the ð1 þ k1 k0 þ k Þp0
a¼
ð30Þ
coefficients q0

k1 ¼ 0:1845; k2 ¼ 125:0; k ¼ 0:0406; k0 ¼ 6:830
ð27Þ
It should be noted that the values of impact pressure
calculated by Gonor and Pik-Pichak (1983) seem to be
too large. In this paper we use the same experimental
data but treat the values of pressure as obtained by a
process of adiabatic shock compression. We approxi-
The pressure ratio and the density ratio behind a
shock as functions of the flow Mach number M are
shown in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively.
Let us consider the coefficient C ¼ qFt2 . Its maxi-
0
mum value is determined by the pressure behind the
shock wave. At the condition (3) the coefficient C is a
function of the flow Mach number and the flow density.
The dependencies of C on M for low-density and high-

Fig. 10. Density ratio vs. Mach number. Dense avalanches. p0 = 100 kPa, ρ0 = 294 kg m− 3.
 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
Fig. 11. The pressure coefficient C as a function of the flow Mach
number. Full line – high density avalanches; dashed line – low density
avalanches.
density avalanches are plotted in Fig. 11. Qualitatively
the curves in Figs. 11 are similar to the curves presenting
measurements data (Yadroshnikov, 1997), see Fig. 12
where C versus the squared Froude number is plotted.
The upper curve in Fig. 12 corresponds to avalanches
consisting of small clods, and the lower one to ava-
lanches consisting of large clods. Note that in fact all
curves in Figs. 11 and 12 can be thought of showing the
dependence of C on the velocity if the density, or,
respectively, the typical dimension entering the Froude
number are constant. Unfortunately quantitative com-
parison is not possible since the needed infor-mation
about the flow depths, clod dimensions and the densities
is absent in (Yadroshnikov, 1997).
Fig. 12. The pressure coefficient C as a function of the flow Froude number. Measure-ment data obtained by various authors and summarized by
Yadroshnikov (1997).
95
6. Conclusions
Snow compression during an impact can cause large
pressure on an obstacle hit by a snow avalanche. The
duration of this large pressure is small (pressure is
reduced by waves, that are reflected from the flow
boundaries). Nevertheless this maximum pressure
should be taken into account in calculations of forces,
acting on an obstacle, and in an interpretation of data
from measurements.
Examples of estimations of the impact pressure
caused by normal compression shocks are given in this
paper. The ratio of the pressures behind and in front of a
shock wave depends essentially on the flow Mach
number, so the Mach number should be included into
the set of parameters that determine the value of the
maximum impact pressure and should be respected in
physical modelling of the process of avalanche impact
against obstacles.
Estimations of the impact pressure given in this paper
are based on the simplest scheme of direct shock waves.
In reality the spatial picture of waves depends on
geometry and dimensions of both the obstacle and the
flow. The calculated values of impact pressure may be
observed in measurements if the sensor's sizes are not
too small. Besides, this simplest theory assumes that
snow particles have the same averaged velocity as an
interstitial air, so impacts of separate clods are not
described by it.
Knowledge of the equation of state of the moving
snow is needed to calculate shock waves in a flow. The
main problem in constructing the proper equation of
state is lack of measurements of the flow density
together with the pressure. In this paper two different
96 M.E. Eglit et al. / Cold Regions Science and Technology 50 (2007) 86–96
equations of state are proposed depending on the flow
density. For low-density avalanches the model is based
on an analogy with the theory of particle-laden gas flows
(Section 3), and for high-density avalanches it is based
on the theory of shock waves in condensed matter as
well as on some limited experimental data (Section 4).
Full experimental justification is connected mainly
with development of the technique of the flow density
measurements.
Unfortunately at present the available experimental
facilities do not allow the direct validation of the
proposed theory. The measurements of the density
(especially its rapid variations) are not reachable. This is
a challenge for the next years. Still we hope that
formulation of the problem itself will stimulate
researchers to make needed measurements and create a
good theory of impact accounting compressibility of an
avalanche snow.
Acknowledgments
This paper was partly written during the stay of one
of the authors (M. E.) at the Norwegian Geotechnical
Institute, Oslo, Norway on a NATO scholarship. M. E. is
grateful to NGI for their hospitality and excellent
working conditions provided. We thank Karstein Lied
and all colleagues in the avalanche group at NGI for
their interest and discussions. We are very grateful to
Dieter Issler and Peter Gauer for useful discussions that
helped to formulate main ideas more clearly. We thank
the reviewers for valuable comments. The work was
partly supported by Russian Foundation for basic
research (05-01-00375) and Foundation for support of
scientific Schools (44742006.1).
References
Bozhinskiy, A.N., Losev, K.S., 1987. Osnovi lavinovedenija.
Leningrad, Gidrometeoizdat, 280p. English translation: Bozhins-
kiy, A.N., K.S. Lo-sev, The Fundamentals of Avalanche Science,
Eidg. Institut fur Schnee-und Lawinenforschung, 1998, CH–7260
Davos Dorf, Switzerland.
Briukhanov, A.V., Grigorian, S.S., Miagkov, S.M., Plam, M.Ya.,
Shurova, I. Ya., Eglit, M.E., Yakimov, Yu.L., 1967. On some new
approaches to the dynamics of snow avalanches. Physics of Snow
and Ice. Proceedings of Int. Conf. on Low Temperat. Sci., Sapporo,
Japan, 1967, pp. 1221–1241.
Gauer, Peter, Dieter, Issler, Karstein, Lied, Krister, Kristensen, Harald,
Iwe, Erik, Lied, Lambert, Rammer, Helmut, Schreiber, 2007. On
full-scale avalanche measurements at the Ryggfonn test site,
Norway. Cold Regions Science and Technology 49 (1), 39–53.
Gonor, A.L., Pik-Pichak, Ye.G., 1983. Chislennoe modelirovanie
udara snezh-noi lavini po tverdoi stenke (Numerical modelling of
an impact of a snow avalanche against a solid wall). Izvestia
Akademii nauk SSSR. Mehanika Zidkosti i Gaza 6, 86–91.
Gray, J.M.N.T., Tai, Y.-C., Noelle, S., 2003. Shock waves, dead-zones
and particle-free regions in rapid granular free surface flows.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics 491, 161–181.
Hakonardottir, K.M., 2004. The interaction Between Snow Ava-
lanches and Dams. PhD thesis, School of Mathematics, University
of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Hakonardottir, K.M., Hogg, A., 2005. Oblique shocks in rapid
granular flows. Physics of Fluids 17, 177101.
Isaenko, E.P., Yadroshnikov, V.I., 1972. Issledovanie ob'emno-
napriazhennogo sostojanija snega pri udarnih nagruzkah (Study
of a stress state in snow at impact). Trudy Novosibirskogo Instituta
Inzenerov Zeleznodoroznogo Transporta 141, 85–92.
Isaenko, E.P., Marin, Yu.A., Yadroshnikov, V.I., 1970. Modelirovanie
udara lavini iz snezhnoi doski o nepodvizhnoe prepjatstvie
(Modeling of an impact of a snow slab avalanche against a fixed
obstacle). Trudy Novosibirskogo Instituta Inzenerov Zeleznodor-
oznogo Transporta 101, 87–108.
Kanel, G.I., Razorenov, S.V., Fortov, V.E., 2004. Shock wave
Phenomena and the Properties of Condensed Matter. Springer-
Verlag, New York.
Lied, K., Kristensen, K., 2003. Snoskred. Handbok om snoskred. Vett
and Viten, AS. 200 pp.
McClung, D., Schaerer, P., 1993. The avalanche handbook. The
Moun-taineers. 272 pp.
Rudinger, G., 1980. Fundamentals of gas-particle flow. Elsevier,
Amsterdam. 142 pp.
Salm, B., Brukard, A., Gubler, H.U., 1990. Berechnung von
Fliesslawinen. Eine Anleitung fur Praktiker mit Beispielen. Mitt.
Eidgenoss. Inst. Schnee-Lawinenforsch, vol. 47. SLF, Davos.
Savage, S.B., 1979. Gravity flow of cohesionless granular materials in
chutes and channels. Journal of Fluid Mechanics 92 (pt.1), 53–96.
Shurova, I.E., 1984. A mechanism of the interaction of a moving snow
mass with a fixed obstacle. Glaciological Data, Report GD-16.
Shurova, I.E., Yakimov, Yu.L., 1970. Issledovanie udara snega o nepod-
vizhnoe prepjatstvie (Study of the impact of snow against a fixed
obstacle). Materiali Glaciologicheskih Issledovanii 16, 52–57.
Yadroshnikov, V.I., 1997. Raschet parametrov lavinozaschitnih
sooruzhenii. (Design of parameters of avalanche defense struc-
tures) Dr.-Ing. Thesis. Novosi-birsk.
Zeldovich, Y.B., Raiser, Y.P., 1966. Physics of Shock Waves and High-
temperature Hydrodynamic Phenomena. Academic, New York.