2,640 research outputs found
Fracture et déclenchement des avalanches de plaque : conditions critiques pour la propagation de la fracture
International audienceThe failure of a weak snow layer buried below cohesive slab layers is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for the release of a dry-snow slab avalanche. The size of the crack in the weak layer must also exceed a critical length to propagate across a slope. In contrast to pioneering shear-based approaches, recent developments account for weak layer collapse and allow for better explaining typical observations of remote triggering from low-angle terrain. However, these new models predict a critical length for crack propagation that is almost independent of slope angle, a rather surprising and counterintuitive result. Based on discrete element simulations we propose a new analytical expression for the critical crack length. This new model reconciles past approaches by considering for the first time the complex interplay between slab elasticity and the mechanical behavior of the weak layer including its structural collapse. The crack begins to propagate when the stress induced by slab loading and deformation at the crack tip exceeds the limit given by the failure envelope of the weak layer. The model can reproduce crack propagation on low-angle terrain and the decrease in critical length with increasing slope angle as modeled in numerical experiments. The good agreement of our new model with extensive field data and the ease of implementation in the snow cover model SNOWPACK opens a promising prospect for improving avalanche forecasting
Snow instability evaluation: calculating the skier-induced stress in a multi-layered snowpack
The process of dry-snow slab avalanche formation can be divided into two
phases: failure initiation and crack propagation. Several approaches tried to
quantify slab avalanche release probability in terms of failure initiation
based on shear stress and strength. Though it is known that both the
properties of the weak layer and the slab play a major role in avalanche
release, most previous approaches only considered slab properties in terms of
slab depth, average density and skier penetration. For example, for the skier
stability index, the additional stress (e.g. due to a skier) at the depth of
the weak layer is calculated by assuming that the snow cover can be
considered a semi-infinite, elastic, half-space. We suggest a new approach
based on a simplification of the multi-layered elasticity theory in order to
easily compute the additional stress due to a skier at the depth of the weak
layer, taking into account the layering of the snow slab and the substratum.
We first tested the proposed approach on simplified snow profiles, then on
manually observed snow profiles including a stability test and, finally, on
simulated snow profiles. Our simple approach reproduced the additional stress
obtained by finite element simulations for the simplified profiles well –
except that the sequence of layering in the slab cannot be replicated. Once
implemented into the classical skier stability index and applied to manually
observed snow profiles classified into different stability classes, the
classification accuracy improved with the new approach. Finally, we
implemented the refined skier stability index into the 1–D snow cover model
SNOWPACK. The two study cases presented in this paper showed promising
results even though further verification is still needed. In the future, we
intend to implement the proposed approach for describing skier-induced stress
within a multi-layered snowpack into more complex models which take into
account not only failure initiation but also crack propagation
WIRED: World Wide Web Interactive Remote Event Display
WIRED is a framework, written in Java, to build High Energy Physics event displays that can be used across the network. To guarantee portability across all platforms, WIRED is implemented in the Java language and uses the Swing user interface component set. It can be used as a stand-alone application or as an applet inside a WWW browser. The graphical user interface allows for multiple views and for multiple controls acting on those views. A detector tree control is available to toggle the visibility of parts of the events and detector geometry. XML (Extensible Markup Language), RMI (Remote Method Invocation) and CORBA loaders can be used to load event data as well as geometry data, and to connect to FORTRAN, C, C++ and Java reconstruction programs. Non-linear and non-Cartesian projections (e.g. fish-eye, rho-phi, rho-Z, phi-Z) provide special views to get a better understanding of events. WIRED has grown to be a framework in use and under development in several HEP experiments (ATLAS, CHORUS, DELPHI, LHCb, BaBar, D0 and ZEUS). WIRED event displays have also proven to be useful to explain High Energy Physics to the general public. Both CERN, in its travelling exhibition and MicroCosm, and RAL, during its open days, have displays set up
Dynamic anticrack propagation in snow
Continuum numerical modeling of dynamic crack propagation has been a great challenge over the past decade. This is particularly the case for anticracks in porous materials, as reported in sedimentary rocks, deep earthquakes, landslides, and snow avalanches, as material inter-penetration further complicates the problem. Here, on the basis of a new elastoplasticity model for porous cohesive materials and a large strain hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian numerical method, we accurately reproduced the onset and propagation dynamics of anticracks observed in snow fracture experiments. The key ingredient consists of a modified strain-softening plastic flow rule that captures the complexity of porous materials under mixed-mode loading accounting for the interplay between cohesion loss and volumetric collapse. Our unified model represents a significant step forward as it simulates solid-fluid phase transitions in geomaterials which is of paramount importance to mitigate and forecast gravitational hazards
HEP Applications Evaluation of the EDG Testbed and Middleware
Workpackage 8 of the European Datagrid project was formed in January 2001
with representatives from the four LHC experiments, and with experiment
independent people from five of the six main EDG partners. In September 2002
WP8 was strengthened by the addition of effort from BaBar and D0. The original
mandate of WP8 was, following the definition of short- and long-term
requirements, to port experiment software to the EDG middleware and testbed
environment. A major additional activity has been testing the basic
functionality and performance of this environment. This paper reviews
experiences and evaluations in the areas of job submission, data management,
mass storage handling, information systems and monitoring. It also comments on
the problems of remote debugging, the portability of code, and scaling problems
with increasing numbers of jobs, sites and nodes. Reference is made to the
pioneeering work of Atlas and CMS in integrating the use of the EDG Testbed
into their data challenges. A forward look is made to essential software
developments within EDG and to the necessary cooperation between EDG and LCG
for the LCG prototype due in mid 2003.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics
Conference (CHEP03), La Jolla, CA, USA, March 2003, 7 pages. PSN THCT00
Modeling of crack propagation in weak snowpack layers using the discrete element method
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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