EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS

Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 40, 1644–1655 (2015)

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published online 24 May 2015 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/esp.3744

Experimental analysis on the impact force of

viscous debris flow
Peng Cui,1,2* Chao Zeng1,3 and Yu Lei1,4
1
Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Processes/Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS, Chengdu,
610041, China
2
CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences
3
Sichuan Geomatics Center/Sichuan Engineering Research Center for Emergency Mapping & Disaster Reduction, Chengdu,
610041, China
4
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Received 26 June 2014; Revised 19 March 2015; Accepted 23 March 2015

*Correspondence to: Peng Cui, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment/Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Processes, CAS, Chengdu,
610041, China. E-mail: pengcui@imde.ac.cn
The copyright line for this article was changed on 6 July 2015 after original online publication.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

ABSTRACT: A miniaturized flume experiment was carried out to measure impact forces of viscous debris flow. The flow depth
(7.2–11.2 cm), velocity (2.4–5.2 m/s) and impact force were recorded during the experiment. The impact process of debris flow can
be divided into three phases by analyzing the variation of impact signals and flow regime. The three phases are the sudden strong impact
of the debris flow head, continuous dynamic pressure of the body and slight static pressure of the tail. The variation of impact process is
consistent with the change in the flow regime. The head has strong–rapid impact pressure, which is shown as a turbulent-type flow; the
body approximates to steady laminar flow. Accordingly, the process of debris flows hitting structures was simplified to a triangle shape,
ignoring the pressure of the tail. In order to study the distribution of the debris flow impact force at different depths and variation of the
impact process over time, the impact signals of slurry and coarse particles were separated from the original signals using wavelet
analysis. The slurry’s dynamic pressure signal appears to be a smooth curve, and the peak pressure is 12–34 kPa when the debris flow
head hits the sensors, which is about 1.54 ± 0.36 times the continuous dynamic pressure of the debris flow body. The limit of application
of the empirical parameter α in the hydraulic formula was also noted. We introduced the power function relationship of α and the Froude
number of debris flows, and proposed a universal model for calculating dynamic pressure. The impact pressure of large particles has the
characteristic of randomness. The mean frequency of large particles impacting the sensor is 210 ± 50–287 ± 29 times per second, and
it is 336 ± 114–490 ± 69 times per second for the debris flow head, which is greater than that in the debris flow body. Peak impact
pressure of particles at different flow depths is 40–160 kPa, which is 3.2 ± 1.5 times the impact pressure of the slurry at the bottom of
the flow, 3.1 ± 0.9 times the flow in the middle, and 3.3 ± 0.9 times the flow at the surface. The differences in impact frequency indicate
that most of the large particles concentrate in the debris flow head, and the number of particles in the debris flow head increases with
height. This research supports the study of solid–liquid two phase flow mechanisms, and helps engineering design and risk assessment
in debris flow prone areas. © 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEYWORDS: viscous debris flow; dynamic pressure of slurry; particles impact process; depth variation; experimental study

Introduction phase vitally influences the motion and impact force of a

Debris flows are a common phenomenon in mountain areas
and are characterized by high capacity for sediment trans-
port, catastrophic occurrences, high-concentration sediment,
wide range of grain size, high velocity and short period of
movement (Cui, 1999), which is the typical solid–liquid
two-phase flow (Fei and Shu, 2004). The fluid phase of a
debris flow is composed of slurry or water mixed with clay,
silt and sand, which surges down as a continuous fluid.
The solid phase is coarse-grained material, which moves as
suspended load or bed load in the fluid phase (Qian and
Wang, 1984). The difference between the solid and fluid
debris flow. Many researchers have been concerned about
these differences, especially the dynamic pressure of slurry and
the impact force of grains.
Few field experiments have been carried out to detect the im-
pact force of a debris flow since the 1970s. An observation sys-
tem was devised at Mt Yakedake in Japan in 1972 that recorded
the dynamic pressure of volcanic muddy flow at about 130
kPa, and the big boulder impact pressure was estimated to be
about 20 times the dynamic pressure (Suwa et al., 1973). Field
observations have been conducted three times in Jiangjia
Ravine, China from 1973 to 2004 (Hu et al., 2006). In 1973,
the dynamic pressure was record at about 190 kPa and large
 IMPACT FORCE OF DEBRIS FLOW
particle impact pressure was 920 kPa (Zhang and Yuan, 1985).
In 2004, the dynamic pressure of a debris flow in Jiangjia Ravine
was 10–50 kPa, and the peak impact loading of grains exceeded
2600 kPa (Hu et al., 2011). In addition, the impact force can be
obtained from the impact trace of debris flow such as from back-
analysis of the indentation and craters in dams arising from the
impact of big boulders (Hungr et al., 1984; Chen and Tang,
2006) and calculation of the critical condition of bridges and build-
ings damaged by debris flows (Zanchetta et al., 2004). Although
field measurement is an efficient way to obtain the impact force
of debris flow, there are still many limits to monitoring and
modeling the behaviors of debris flow impact. For instance, the
occurrence frequency of debris flow events is hard to predict,
and it is very difficult to install and to operate measurement devices
during field observations. And for large scale experiments, the ex-
pected volume of the event makes the design cost-intensive and
flow material parameters are often lacking (Bugnion et al., 2012).
Therefore, miniaturized flume experiments became popular
in studying the impact force of debris flow (Armanini, 1997;
Arattano and Franzi, 2003; Armanini et al., 2004, 2011;
Zanuttigh and Lamberti, 2006; Huang et al., 2007). Much progress
has been achieved by many researchers. Zanuttigh and
Lamberti (2006) analyzed the impact process of debris flows
on structures of different shapes that reproduce check-dams,
filter-dams, buildings and flow-breakers, and compared the im-
pact forces obtained in the experiments with available analyti-
cal formulas. By integrating hydrostatic and dynamic pressures
in their formula, the maximum impact force of debris flows was
calculated for a given upstream flow depth and velocity. Some
experiments were also carried out to detect the impact force of
debris flow and granular flow (Huang et al., 2007; Ishikawa
et al., 2008), but the impact signals of particle and slurry were
not separated, which limits its utilization. Numerical methods
can be adopted to simulate the behavior and impact process of
debris flows (Zanuttigh and Lamberti, 2004), but assumptions
about the rheological parameters and material concentration
may cause uncertainty. Therefore, an accurate analytic method
is an effective way to obtain debris flow impact force. For most
analytic formulas, the empirical coefficients, the relationship be-
tween the dynamic pressure and ρv2, need to be estimated with
laboratory data. However, because most analytical and numeri-
cal models have worked on the assumption that particle concen-
tration and velocity is uniform at different positions along the flow
depth (Wei, 1996; Zanuttigh and Lamberti, 2006), the impact
force of large particles was accordingly ignored. Therefore, the
models mentioned above are more suitable for a pseudo-
homogenous fluid, in which the motion state of particles is similar
to that of fluid (Armanini et al., 2011; Proske et al., 2011), rather
than the natural debris flow with fluid–solid phases. Some experts
Figure 1. The experimental equipment.
© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
1645
have realized that the variance of the impact force is due to the
distribution of grains in the flow (Hübl et al., 2009). It may cause
a possible risk for prevention systems if the countermeasures are
designed according to the impact value calculated by the models
(Wendeler et al., 2007; Suda et al., 2009). Therefore, separate
calculation of the slurry impact pressure and the particle load
force of debris flows is useful for designing countermeasures
against debris flows, and need to be further investigated.
In this work, the signals of the impact force of viscous debris
flows were recorded in a miniaturized flume experiment. The
dynamic pressure of slurry and the impact pressure of particles
were separated from the original debris flow impact signals by
wavelet analysis. The distribution and processes of debris flow
impact force at different depths were also analyzed. The key
elements obtained in this study will help engineering design
and risk assessment.
Experimental Design
Experimental equipment
The experimental equipment consisted of three parts. The first part
was the flume which was 0.2 m wide, 0.4 m deep and 3 m long
(a schematic diagram of the flume is shown in Figure 1). The
flume’s length was sufficient to allow the front and body of the
debris flow to reach an asymptotic configuration (constant shape
of the front and of the body) that moves without deformation, and
to make sure the flow regime of debris flows is similar to those of
the Jiangjia Ravine. The bottom of the flume was made from steel
plate and the sides were constructed of glass walls to allow optical
measurements and video observations. The sensor support was
made of steel plate 30 mm wide and 180 mm long. In order to
avoid detection error caused by accumulation in front of the
sensors, the sensor support was fixed at the end of the flume to en-
able the debris flow to pass the sensor as smoothly as possible. The
second part was the square tank of 1 m side length, which was
fixed at the upstream end of the flume. The gate was a steel plate
which was installed at the bottom of the tank and could be pulled
away from the tank suddenly, so that all the material was flushed
down rapidly. There was a chute connecting the gate and flume
to let the material flow smoothly. The third part was a pool placed
at the end of the flume to collect the material for reutilization.
Experimental material
In order to simulate the behavior of natural debris flows in the
field, material from Jiangjia Ravine was used in our
Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
1646
Figure 2. Cumulative grain size distribution of the debris flow.
experiments. To make sure all particles flow smoothly and pass
freely through the section where the sensor supporting bar is
installed, particles with a diameter of more than 20 mm were
removed by screen separation. The composition of the solid
phase of the material remained constant during the experi-
ment, but the liquid concentration was changed in different
tests. The volumetric concentration was varied from 0.34–
0.76.The cumulative grain size distribution of the experimental
sample (solid phase) is shown in Figure 2. The clay, silt, sand,
and gravel content of the material was 2.9%, 5.1%, 37%, and
55%, respectively. The diameter d50 was estimated at 2.7 mm.
The sorted index (δx = (d84 + d16)/2) describing the range of
grain size was about 4.7 mm.
Measurements system
Debris flow velocity, depth and impact forces were recorded in
real time during the experiment. The impact detection system
composed of five sensors (load cells), a data collection device
and a computer (Figure 3). The diameter of the sensor was 20
mm with a sampling frequency of 2000 Hz; the high frequency
was to allow detection of the transient impulse of the boulder
impact force and fluid dynamic pressure. In addition, the laser
distance measuring instrument (Code: LDS-30-VCR-S12) with a
sampling frequency of 10 Hz was installed upstream of the sen-
sors and was used to record the flow depth of debris flow. A
camera with high definition was installed above the flume to
Figure 3. Impact pressure measurement system. This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
P. CUI ET AL.
capture the movement of the debris flow. It had a sampling fre-
quency of 50 pictures per second. The mean surface velocity
and the flow regime were obtained by image back-analysis.
For bulk density calculations, samples were collected as the
flow front reached the sampling section (the end of flume) dur-
ing the test, using a cylinder sampler with 15 cm diameter and
12 cm in depth.
Tests and Data Analysis
Tests and the fluid properties
A total of 27 tests were carried out with different densities and
slopes (Table I). In order to examine whether the sensors
worked well and to guarantee the accuracy of the acquired
data, three tests with clean water were carried out first. An ex-
ample of the impact pressure of water is shown in Figure 4. A
further 24 tests for debris flow were developed with flume
slopes of 10°, 13° and 15° (eight tests for each slope). The de-
bris flow density was about 1600–2300 kg/m3.
In order to analyze the dynamic behavior of debris flow be-
fore impacting, the dimensionless numbers of Re (Reynolds
number) and Fr (Froude number) which implicate fluid dynamic
properties of debris flow were obtained, and the dynamic vis-
cosity and yield stress of the debris flow were also calculated.
It was assumed that the debris flow in the test is a Bingham
fluid, the (NRey) number can be estimated with Equation (1)
Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
 IMPACT FORCE OF DEBRIS FLOW 1647

Table I. Tests and fluid properties

Density Water Volumetric Total Flume Dynamic Yield Froude

3 3
Test no. (kg/m ) concentration concentration volume(m ) slope(°) viscosity (Pa s) stress (Pa) number

1 1000 1 0.00 0.23 13 0.001 — 5.9

2 1000 1 0.00 0.24 13 0.001 — 5.6
3 1000 1 0.00 0.26 13 0.001 — 5.4
4 2089 0.34 0.64 0.24 10 0.112 34.10 4.5
5 2296 0.21 0.76 0.27 10 14.106 172.05 4.5
6 2148 0.30 0.68 0.26 10 0.223 53.92 4.3
7 2123 0.32 0.66 0.24 10 0.162 44.44 4.7
8 2111 0.33 0.65 0.24 10 0.141 40.50 4.8
9 2093 0.34 0.64 0.23 10 0.116 35.10 4.3
10 2005 0.39 0.59 0.24 10 0.054 17.59 3.2
11 1586 0.64 0.34 0.28 10 0.006 0.38 5.8
12 1829 0.50 0.49 0.22 13 0.02 4.44 4.5
13 2116 0.32 0.66 0.24 13 0.149 42.02 2.5
14 1931 0.44 0.55 0.22 13 0.033 9.85 4.1
15 2113 0.33 0.65 0.21 13 0.144 40.96 2.8
16 2144 0.31 0.67 0.24 13 0.213 52.53 2.6
17 1590 0.64 0.35 0.26 13 0.007 0.59 5.6
18 2240 0.25 0.73 0.24 13 1.297 110.84 4.4
19 2095 0.34 0.64 0.24 13 0.119 35.74 5.2
20 1706 0.57 0.42 0.22 15 0.012 1.70 4.8
21 2051 0.36 0.62 0.22 15 0.078 25.25 3.7
22 1980 0.41 0.58 0.21 15 0.045 14.47 4.1
23 2074 0.35 0.63 0.23 15 0.096 30.32 4.0
24 1961 0.42 0.57 0.23 15 0.04 12.46 4.1
25 1877 0.47 0.52 0.22 15 0.025 6.48 4.4
26 1810 0.51 0.48 0.22 15 0.018 3.84 4.5
27 1849 0.49 0.50 0.22 15 0.022 5.21 4.4

20 which is 0.4 m from the sensor support. The distance of 0.4

Detected signal m between the sensor and detecting section is considered to re-
18
Denoised signal duce the influence of the reflecting wave that propagated
16 Filtered signal upstream.
14 The dynamic viscosity and yield stress of debris flow were
Impact pressure (kPa)

12 estimated with the models proposed by Fei and Shu (2004)

(Equations (3) and (4)). These formulae, based on observed
10
data of debris flows in Jiangjia ravine, were recommended
8 because of their good application to debris flow slurry mixed
6 with particles.
4
 2:5 !2:5
S vf S vc
2 μ ¼ μ0  μr ¼ μ0  1  k   1 ′ (3)
S vm S vm
0

-2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  
Time (s) S v  S v0
τ B ¼ 0:098 exp 8:54  þ 1:5 (4)
S vm
Figure 4. Time series of denoised and filtered impact pressure of
clean water in the first test. This figure is available in colour online at where μ is the dynamic viscosity of debris flow (Pa s), and τ B is
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
the yield stress (Pa). μ0 is the dynamic viscosity of clean water
(the value is 0.001 Pas for water with a temperature of plus
20°C), μr is relative dynamic viscosity, k is the viscosity modified
(Kang et al., 2004). The Froude number is calculated with coefficient, Svf is the volume concentration of slurry without par-
Equation (2). ticles, the maximum grain size of slurry is 2 mm (Wang et al.,
2003; Kang et al., 2004). Svc is the volume concentration of par-
N Rey ¼ 4ρm vh=μ (1) ticles, Svm is the limit concentration of slurry, which can be cal-
culated with Equation (5), and S′vm is the limit concentration of
pffiffiffiffiffiffi particles in debris flow (0.8). Sv is the concentration of the debris
Fr ¼ v= gh (2) flow, Svo is the critical concentration with the Newtonian flow
transform to Bingham flow, Sv0=1.26Svm3.2.
where NRey is the Bingham Reynolds number, ρm is the density
of debris flow (kg/m3), v (m/s) and h (m) are the velocity and S vm ¼ 0:92  0:2 lg∑pi =d i (5)
depth, μ is the dynamic viscosity (Pas), g is the acceleration of
gravity (9.8 m/s2). The velocity and depth of the surge front where di (mm) and pi are the average diameter and weight ratio
were measured in the same section and at the same time, of particles in the grain size distribution curve.

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
1648
The dynamic viscosity of the debris flow was estimated at
0.006–14.106 Pas (Table I), the yield stress at 0.384–172.045
Pa, and the Bingham Reynolds number in range 314–448818.
The dynamic viscosity and yield stress grow gradually with
the increase of density when the debris flow density is lower
than 2200 kg/m3. If the density is greater than 2200 kg/m3,
the two parameters will increase dramatically, and the Bingham
Reynolds number will drop below 1000. The Froude number
was calculated at about 2.5–5.9, encompassing the value for
most debris flow types.
Denoising and filtering of impact signals
The impact force recorded by load cells was converted into the
impact pressure of the cross-section facing the debris flow. In
order to eliminate the random noise resulting from the measur-
ing system and external disturbances, the impact pressure sig-
nals were denoised to obtain the real impact signals of debris
flow. The denoised signals contained the slurry pressure and
the grain impact loading. Hu et al. (2011) suggested that the
rectangular and smooth impulse results from a continuous uni-
form fluid pressure while the peak impulse is from individual
boulders, and some researchers have testified that the smooth
impact signals can be extracted using wavelet analysis (Zhang,
2009; Yang et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2013). Therefore, the wave-
let method was utilized to denoise and filter the debris flow sig-
nals, so as to separate the fluid pressure and grain impulse.
The original impact signal of a debris flow can be expressed
as the superposition of the real impact signal and the noise
(Equation (6)):
f ðt Þ ¼ ^f ðt Þ þ ε  e ðt Þ; t ¼ 0; 1; ⋯ n  1
where f(t )is the detected impact signal, ^f ðt Þ is the real impact
signal, the low frequency part and e(t) is the noise, the high fre-
quency component.
Three steps are necessary to denoise and filter signals (Misiti
et al., 1996):
1. Decompose
In order to obtain a smooth and continuous dynamic pressure
for the fluid phase, the Daubechie (db4) function was chosen
as the wavelet basis function because of orthonormality.
Then, the original signals were decomposed into eight levels
with the basic function (Equation (7)):
f ðt Þ ¼ A8 f þ D8 f þ D 7 f þ ⋯ þD1 f
where A8f represents the smooth signal which implies a low
frequency component, A8 is the approximation coefficient,
D8f–D1f represents the grain impulse signal, which implies a
high frequency component mixed in the noise, and D8–D1
are the detailed coefficients.
2. Threshold detail coefficients
For each level from 1 to 8, the threshold detail coefficients were
estimated using Equation (8). The threshold T strongly affects
the accuracy of denoised results. In our study, the thresholds
for each level were estimated using the principle of the least
standard deviation between the original and denoised signal.
(  
Dj Dj > T 
^j ¼
D   (8)
0 D j ≤ T 
where Dj is the detailed coefficients wavelet, j = 1,2…8 and T
© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
P. CUI ET AL.
represents the threshold of the detailed coefficient to eliminate
noise; the coefficient of each level was set to zero if it was
greater than the threshold T.
3. Reconstruct
Wavelet reconstruction was computed using the original
approximation coefficients for level 8 and the modified de-
tail coefficients of levels 1to 8 (Equation (9)):
^ 8f þ D
A8 f þ D ^ 7 f þ ⋯ þD
^ 1 f ¼ f ðk Þ (9)
Results and Analysis
Separation of the grain and slurry impact signal
The wavelet method was confirmed for denoising the impact
pressure signal of the debris flow. The impact pressure recorded
before and after the impact process was converted to zeros, and
the 99% original signal energy was preserved after the noise re-
duction. Examples are provided in Figures 4 and 5. The impact
signals were reconstructed using the original approximation
coefficients of level 8 (A8f) recommended as the dynamic pres-
sure of debris flow, which means all detailed signals from levels
^ 8f  D^ 1 f ) were disposed (filtered).
1–8 (D
By considering the similarity of the water and slurry impact
characteristics, the accuracy of the filtering results for clean
water impact pressure was confirmed. As Figure 4 shows, the
dynamic pressure of water was smooth and the correlative
coefficients of the original and filtered signals reached
0.97–0.99, which indicates that the filtered signals closely
represent the real impact signals. The debris flow impact signals
were also filtered in the same way. The impact pressure of the
(6) grains was obtained by subtracting the dynamic pressure of
the slurry from the original pressure (Figure (6)).
The velocity was estimated at 4.6–4.9 m/s for clean water
when the flume slope was 13° (Table II), the Froude number
was 5.4–5.9, and the detected peak dynamic pressure of the
water was 10–13 kPa. The peak dynamic pressure of the slurry
was 12–34 kPa, which is greater than that of water. The range
of velocities of the debris flow was 2.4–5.2 m/s and the maxi-
mum depth in front of the sensors was 7.2–11.2 cm. The impact
pressure of most big grains is much larger than that of slurry,
and is about 40–160 kPa.
55
(7) 50
Detected signal
Denoised signal
45 Filtered signal
40
Impact pressure (kPa)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (s)
Figure 5. Time series of denoised and filtered impact pressure of de-
bris flow in the fifth test recorded at 1.5 cm above the bottom. This figure
is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
 IMPACT FORCE OF DEBRIS FLOW 1649

50
force. Therefore, the change of flow regime during the impact
45 processes is discussed first. The Bingham Reynolds number
(Re) was used to predict the flow regime in our study.
40
Table I shows that the Bingham Re in our experiment was
35 0.003 × 105–4.49 × 105. According to the field observation
Impact pressure (kPa)

30
and calculation of the flow regime in the Jiangjia Ravine,
viscous debris flow will become turbulent when the velocity
25 reaches 5–7 m/s and the Bingham Reynolds number is larger
20
than 1.4 × 105–2.06 × 105 (Kang et al., 2004), and it will
become intensely turbulent if the velocity is 7–9 m/s and the
15 Bingham Reynolds number is larger than 2.4 × 105– 8.7×105.
10 By contrasting the Re number estimated in our experiment with
that observed in the field at Jiangjia Ravine, the flow regime and
5 impact processes of debris flow can be divided into three stages:
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. The rapid and powerful impact of the debris flow head: the flow
Time (s)
reached two sensors at heights 4.5–6.0 cm. For the debris flow
(a) Time series of impact load of grains densities were greater than 2000 kg/m3, the Bingham Reynolds
recorded at 1.5 cm above the bottom
number of the head was smaller than 2.06 × 105, and
50
the debris flow appeared stable or slightly turbulent. If
45 the densities are lower than 2000 kg/m3, the flow
becomes turbulent or even intensely turbulent. After the
40
short powerful impact, the debris flow rose rapidly, with
the fifth sensor at 13.5 cm above the bottom surrounded
Impact pressure (kPa)

35
by the flow (Figure 7(a)).
30
2. The continuous and steady impact of the debris flow body:
25 the flow buried three sensors to depths of about 7.5 cm
20
(Figure 7(b)). At this stage the turbulence became very
weak, and the debris flow approximated a steady laminar
15 flow; this phenomenon in the experiment is similar to that
10
observed in Jiangjia Ravine by Takahashi (2007).
3. The slip flow of the debris flow tail: the velocity became
5 much lower, and the sensors were subjected to static pres-
0 sure (Figure 7(c)).
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (s) Because the static pressure of the debris flow tail is much
(b) Time series of impact loads of grains smaller than the rapid impact pressure, the first two steps were
recorded at 4.5 cm above the bottom
taken as the whole impact process of debris flow and the im-
50 pact signals recorded by the sensors at 10.5 cm and 13.5 cm
45 high were disposed of owing to the run up effect. The impact
signals recorded at 1.5, 4.5 and 7.5 cm were selected to ana-
40
lyze the impact characteristics of the debris flow.
35
Impact pressure (kPa)

30
The impact processes of slurry and the empirical
25 model
20
The typical processes of dynamic pressure
15 The impact time became shorter with the increase of sensor
10
height. The impact processes at the bottom sensor (1.5 cm high)
were sustained for about 5 s, and the impact was sustained for
5 2–3 s for the upper sensor at 7.5 cm high (Figure 8). Based on
0 the record of maximum flow depth, the processes for the
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 dynamic pressure of slurry can be separated into two parts,
Time (s) the flow before maximum flow depth, process 1, and that after,
(c) Time series of impact loads of grains process 2.
recorded at 7.5 cm above the bottom

Figure 6. Time series of impact load of grains in the fifth test; left of
1. Process 1 features as the sudden and powerful impact by
the dashed line are impact loads of grains in the debris flow front and
those to the right side are in the debris flow body. This figure is avail-
able in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
The impact processes of debris flow
It was found that the flow regime influences the velocity and
the geometry of the flow, which in turn determines the impact
the debris flow head, as shown in Figure 8. The impact time
of the process 1 (flow head) was estimated at about 0.8–1s,
from the time when a debris flow touches the load sensor till
the time the flow depth reaches a maximum (Figure 9) (to
the left part of the dashed line). When the debris flow head
hits the bottom (1.5 cm) and middle sensors (4.5 cm), the
impact force at the two heights increased rapidly, and the
mean peak impact pressure at the middle sensor was larger
than that at the bottom by 2–3 kPa. The mean peak impact

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
1650 P. CUI ET AL.

Table II. Impact pressure of debris flow slurry and big grains

Pressure of slurry (kPa) Pressure of grain (kPa)

Density Velocity Depth
3
Test no. (kg/m ) (m/s) (cm) 1# 2# 3# 1# 2# 3#

1 1000 4.86 7.00 11.15 12.54 10.82 — — —

2 1000 4.74 7.20 10.89 13.04 10.61 — — —
3 1000 4.62 7.50 12.50 12.56 10.92 — — —
4 2089 4.59 10.40 21.08 21.03 17.66 75.36 55.19 64.59
5 2296 4.59 10.50 19.92 24.03 17.02 47.41 70.24 60.77
6 2148 4.11 9.40 20.77 21.23 14.48 47.61 93.48 93.71
7 2123 4.59 9.70 18.15 21.94 16.54 56.88 128.09 42.67
8 2111 4.59 9.20 19.20 15.21 15.91 44.55 56.55 49.04
9 2093 4.33 10.20 28.30 27.43 17.33 58.38 48.93 48.93
10 2005 3.00 9.20 13.79 19.20 11.31 34.56 61.28 31.77
11 1586 5.20 8.10 25.23 13.78 11.63 117.44 38.80 34.03
12 1829 3.71 7.00 20.88 19.74 10.88 72.86 54.21 48.88
13 2116 2.36 8.80 18.75 22.04 13.64 49.98 41.01 44.44
14 1931 3.71 8.30 24.81 30.57 18.22 45.82 71.30 49.70
15 2113 2.79 10.30 24.43 32.62 15.38 44.32 51.23 29.01
16 2144 2.69 10.80 27.74 30.10 21.09 35.38 51.36 29.14
17 1590 4.33 6.20 20.50 15.76 16.67 39.80 56.62 37.85
18 2240 4.33 9.80 20.14 25.83 19.65 142.13 91.10 68.57
19 2095 4.88 9.00 31.45 22.84 17.97 87.81 82.49 63.81
20 1706 4.59 9.40 30.87 23.82 15.14 79.85 57.94 59.70
21 2051 3.90 11.20 22.98 28.40 25.46 49.09 88.40 83.14
22 1980 4.11 10.10 26.38 29.30 15.60 168.56 107.72 61.67
23 2074 4.11 10.60 33.13 29.49 26.62 66.05 90.52 69.50
24 1961 4.11 10.20 28.94 25.86 20.58 108.39 74.25 88.04
25 1877 4.33 9.90 24.73 28.40 14.94 160.07 91.05 51.78
26 1810 4.33 9.50 30.95 33.97 19.26 78.31 118.49 80.06
27 1849 3.90 8.20 27.19 24.61 20.69 125.37 102.80 60.19
#1,#2,#3 indicate the three sensors located at different vertical positions, 1.5 cm, 4.5 cm and 7.5 cm from the bottom of the flume, respectively.

(a) The rapid and powerful impact of the debris flow head

(b) The continuous and steady impact of the debris flow body

(c) The static pressure of the debris flow tail on sensors

Figure 7. Impact processes of debris flow on sensors.

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
 IMPACT FORCE OF DEBRIS FLOW 1651

40
Dynamic imapct pressure at 1.5cm
35 Dynamic imapct pressure at 4.5cm
Dynamic imapct pressure at 7.5cm
30
Impact pressure (kPa)

25

20

15

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (s) Figure 10. Simplification of time series of debris flow dynamic pres-
sure: ① represents the stage of debris flow head impact ② represents
Figure 8. Time series of debris flow dynamic impact pressure at three the stage of debris flow body impact.
depths (1.5, 4.5 and 7.5 cm) during the second test. This figure is avail-
able in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
time is about 4 s and can be represented by a triangle shape. The
top of the structures will be damaged where subjected to higher
24 12
shearing and bending at this stage. Therefore, the impact pro-
22 Dynamic pressure 11
cesses of debris flow on structures can be simplified to the com-
Debris flow depth
20 10 bination of the impulsive forms of two triangles (Figure 10).
18 9
Debris flow depth(cm)
Impact pressure(kPa)

16 8 Empirical model to calculate dynamic pressure

14 7 The hydrodynamic model (Equation (10)) is the most popular
12 6
one for calculating the dynamic pressure of the slurry, because
the debris flow velocity and coefficient α are more easily ac-
10 5
quired. It is mainly derived from fluid momentum balance
8 4
and the Bernoulli equation, which can be applied to calculate
6 3 impact pressure of most fluids, even in the case of pure water
4 2 and saturated mixtures. The key issue for the model is the deter-
2 1 mination of the empirical coefficient.
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time(s) P ¼ αρm v 2 (10)

Figure 9. Comparison of debris flow impact pressure (measured by

bottom sensor, 1.5 cm from floor of flume) and debris flow depth vari- where P is the dynamic pressure of debris flow in N/m2, ρm is
ation in the second test. This figure is available in colour online at the density of debris flow (kg/m3), v is the velocity of debris
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl flow (m/s). The empirical coefficient α is used to represent the
difference of flow regime and proportions of granular composi-
tion. The values of the coefficient have been estimated based
pressure for the three slopes of 10°, 13° and 15° were on laboratory tests and field observations (Table III). However,
28 kPa, 32 kPa and 37 kPa, respectively. a model is still lacking that can be applied to all types of flow
2. In process 2, the depth of debris flow was between 7.2 and or some sort of debris flow.
11.2 cm when the debris flow body reached the sensors.
During this stage, the impact pressure at the bottom Table III. Empirical coefficients in hydrodynamic models
decreased smoothly and the impact pressure at the top
(7.5 cm) reached a peak. The mean impact pressures for Empirical
each of the three slopes were 14 kPa, 19 kPa and 22 kPa. Resource coefficient α Description

In considering the change of flow regime, the impact pro- Zhang (1993) 3–5 Estimated with the data measured in
cesses, and the most vulnerable condition for structures hit by de- Jiangjia Ravine, China, characterized
by viscous debris flow.
bris flows, it is reasonable to speculate that the processes of
Watanabe and 2.0 Estimated with the data measured in
structure damage by debris flow can be simplified into two parts. Ikeya (1981) Nojiri Ravine, Japan, characterized
The first is the debris flow front impact. During the impact process by volcanic debris flow (mudflow).
of the debris flow front, the impact pressures detected at the bot- Hungr et al. 1.5 Back analysis of the stony type debris
tom and middle sensors are maximum. Therefore, the mean of (1984) flow in British Columbia, Canada.
maximum impact pressures at these two sensors is regarded as Mizuyama 1.0 Derived from jet impact theory,
the peak impact pressure Pmax of debris flow front. The stress (1979) applied in Yakedake, Nigorisawa
point of Pmax is relative low and the impact location is much Urakawa debris flow in Japan.
lower than the height of the structure. The bottom of the structure Armanini 0.45–2.2 Estimated with the data measured in
(1997) laboratory experiments, the material
would be damaged first where it is subjected to higher shearing
is a mixture of PVC and water with
and bending. The second part is the continuous pressure of the 3
densities 1080–1300 kg/m .
debris flow body, which is equal to 0.68 ± 0.14Pmax. The impact

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
1652
The Froude number indicates the kinetic energy component ra-
tio between horizontal and vertical directions. The impact force
of debris flow is mainly determined by the kinetic energy compo-
nent in the horizontal direction. Therefore, some experts have
tried to use the Froude number to determine the dynamic pres-
sure (Armanini 1997; Scotten and Trivellato, 1995; Hübl and
Holzinger, 2003; Tiberghien et al., 2007). Zanuttigh and Lamberti
(2006) proposed a simple expression derived from momentum
balance to calculate the impact force on the structure by intro-
ducing Froude number (Fr). Hübl et al. (2009) also recommended
that the relationship of the Fr and empirical coefficient (α) was de-
termined by a power function (Equation (11)):
α ¼ P max =ρm  v 2 ¼ a  Fr b
where Fr is the Froude number of the debris flow, Pmax is the de-
tected peak impact pressure of the debris flow (N/m2), which is
equal to the mean impact pressure at 1.5 cm and 4.5 cm height
in this paper, ρm is the density of the debris flow (kg/m3), and a
and b are the coefficients.
In this paper, a power model was introduced. In order to en-
hance the robustness and extrapolation capability of the regres-
sion model, the impact data from previous studies were used.
Some data were obtained from miniaturized flume tests by
Hübl and Holzinger (2003), Tiberghien et al. (2007), Scheidl
et al. (2013) and others were estimated from field observed
events by Zhang and Yuan (1985) and Costa (1984) (Figure 11).
The empirical coefficient was estimated at 0.12–18.6, and the
Froude number at 0.5–10.8.
The values of a and b were determined from a power model
based on 155 sets of data (Figure 11). The regression hydrody-
namic model is shown in Equation (12):
P ¼ 5:3Fr 1:5  ρm  v 2
Grain impact characteristic
The grain impact pressure was obtained by subtracting the dy-
namic pressure of the slurry from the denoised signal (Figure 6).
The grain impact pressure is random and does not increase
with fluid pressure. The impulsive load of the grains was re-
corded at different depths. The load at the top sensor was
greater than that at the bottom and middle sensors in some ex-
periments. For example, during the fifth experiment, when the
debris flow depth reached 10.2 cm, the impact loads on the
top sensor, the middle sensor and the bottom sensor were
Figure 11. Relationships between Froude number and empirical coef-
ficients. This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.
com/journal/espl
© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
P. CUI ET AL.
estimated at 45 kPa, 23 kPa and 14 kPa, respectively. This indi-
cates that particles may scatter at different depths and big grains
tend to concentrate in the upper layer.
The peak impact pressure of particles at different flow depths
was 40–160 kPa. The ratios of the peak grain impact loading
to the fluid pressure were different at the three depths for the
24 measurements of the surge: 3.2 ± 1.5 times for the bottom
sensor, 3.1 ± 0.9 times for the middle sensor and 3.3 ± 0.9
times for the surface sensor.
The responses to grain impact pressure at the three depths
were not synchronous. The bottom sensor recorded more grain
impacts, but the highest impact frequency occurred on the mid-
dle sensor. The total number of particle impacts on the bottom
(11) sensor was 1048 ± 250 times and as the impact was sustained
for 5 s the frequency was estimated at about 210 ± 50 times per
second; the number of impacts at the middle sensor was 861 ±
144, the impact was sustained for 3 s and the frequency was
about 287 ± 29 times per second; for the top sensor these pa-
rameters were 452 ± 176 times, 2 s and 226 ± 35 times per
second.
The grain impact frequency of the debris flow head was
greater than that of the debris flow body. During the 1 s impact
of the debris flow head, the grain impacts at the three depths
were 490 ± 69, 493 ± 52 and 336 ± 114 times. These reveal
that most particles were concentrated in the debris flow head,
and the number may have increased with height.
Discussion
Miniaturized flume experiments were carried out to measure
the impact force of viscous debris flow. The detected impact
signals were denoised and filtered using wavelet analysis; this
(12) method performs well for preserving the real impact signals.
The signals for the dynamic pressure of the slurry and for the
impact load of grains were separated successfully. Based on
the separated signals, the impact processes of debris flow and
characteristics of grain impact pressure were studied in detail.
From the practical application of this and its potential contribu-
tion to validating the fluid–solid phase model of our study, the
relationships of the impact characteristics and the engineering
design and the particle motion mechanism are discussed.
The flume test results are consistent with those
recorded in field observations
The impact signals at different depths in the experiment show a
typical impact process of debris flow, and is in accordance with
that recorded in Jiangjia Ravine by Hu et al. (2011), which con-
firms the attempt to approach real debris flow behavior in our
study. The consensus also can be established on separating de-
bris flow impact signals into slurry and big grains for both flume
tests and field observations. The dynamic pressure of slurry was
18–60 kPa in Jiangjia Ravine, when debris flow velocity was
5–10 m/s (Hu et al., 2011), which would be same as the records
in our experiment if the velocities were the same. The grain im-
pact loading is random, and the impact frequency of big grains
was likely to increase with the depth, which indicates that large
grains are prone to concentrate in the surface and middle parts
of the flow, and this phenomenon has also been found in natu-
ral debris flows in Jiangjia Ravine. All these reveal that our tests
are reliable and applicable for understanding debris flow im-
pacts. However, flume size still limits simulating the effects of
real, big boulders.
Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
 IMPACT FORCE OF DEBRIS FLOW 1653

The hydrodynamic model was improved by Therefore, if we only consider the rapid impact of the debris
introducing Froude number flow front for engineering design, but ignore the continuous im-
pact processes, the risk to structures from the impact of a debris
It was found that the flow regime influenced the way that the flow will tend to be underestimated.
debris flow impacted on the structure. In previous studies, the
empirical coefficients varied from place to place (Table II),
and there was no formula for calculating the dynamic pressure
of slurry with different flow regimes. The dimensionless number
Fr is defined as the ratio of a characteristic velocity to a gravita-
tional wave velocity: it is used to determine the flow pattern
and it is frequently used in the construction of dynamically sim-
ilar models. Therefore, the Fr numbers were introduced to de-
scribe the differences in flow patterns, and to achieve scale
invariance for miniaturized flume tests.
The Froude number estimated from miniaturized flume tests
was in the range 0.6 to 10.8 (Figure 11), which is similar to that
estimated from observed events (which was 0.5–7.6). The
power model performed well in fitting 155 sets of the data from
miniaturized and field experiments (coefficient of correlation
0.91). This indicates that the model proposed in this paper
can be widely applied to the calculation of debris flow
dynamic pressure. However, there are still other types of debris
flow to consider, with Froude numbers lower than 0.5 or larger Figure 13. Building hit by debris flow in Longchi, Du jiangyan,
than 10.8. China. A column was destroyed at the column bottom as debris flow
reached the middle of the column. This figure is available in colour on-
line at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/espl
The risk of structure damage may be reduced by
considering the impact processes
The behavior of debris flow towards structures can be summa-
rized as the powerful impact by the debris flow head leading to
structural damage followed by buried damage with the tail. The
processes described below are shown in Figure 12.

1. The structure is hit by the debris flow head with a turbulent

flow regime. The dynamic pressure can be simplified to a
uniform load on the structure, with the maximum stress
point located at 1/3 of the depth. The structure’s bottom is
more vulnerable to shearing stress and bending.
2. Continuous dynamic pressure on the structure leads to
sustainable deformation. The peak pressure appears at
the top of flow and the load distribution is approximately
trapezoidal. The maximum stress point is reached at 2/3
of the depth. In this condition, the top of the structure
would be damaged first due to maximum shearing and
bending. Figure 14. The column was destroyed from its top point as debris flow
3. The discharge and velocity of the debris flow decreases. was higher than the column in Qipan ravine, Wenchuan County, 2013.
The stress point shifts down along the structure and there This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/jour-
will be deposits or buried damage. nal/espl

Figure 12. Simplification of the impact processes of debris flow on structures.

© 2015 The Authors. Earth Surface Proccesses and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, Vol. 40, 1644–1655 (2015)
1654
There is some evidence that the location of the stress point
affects structural damage (Zeng et al., 2014). For example, dur-
ing a building impact by debris flow in Longchi, Du jiangyan
city, China, the bottom of a column was destroyed as the debris
flow front reached the middle of the column (Figure 13).
Another building in Qipan ravine, Wenchuan county, China,
was damaged at the top of a column when debris flow depth
is higher than the column (Figure 14).
Conclusions
The impact processes of debris flow on structures were divided
into three stages, according to changes in the flow regime and
the impact pressure series of the debris flow. The first stage is
the sudden and powerful impact of the debris flow head, which
was sustained for 1 s with a peak impulse shape. The Bingham
Reynolds number of the head was 0.003 × 105–4.49 × 105
where it appeared stable or slightly turbulent. The second stage
is the continuous and steady impact by the debris flow body
sustained for 3–4 s, where the debris flow approximated steady
laminar flow and the peak impact pressure was 0.68 ± 0.14
times that of the debris flow head. The last stage was the slip
flow of the debris flow tail sustained for 3–4 s. The velocity be-
came much lower, and the sensors were subjected to static
pressure.
The wavelet analysis method performed well in separating
the impact pressures of the slurry and the coarse grains. An em-
pirical model for calculating the dynamic pressure of the slurry
was proposed. In order to describe the differences of flow pat-
terns and to achieve scale invariance for miniaturized flume
tests, Froude numbers were introduced into the model.
The grain impact pressure was random and did not increase
with fluid pressure. The grain impact frequency of the debris
flow head was greater than that of the debris flow body, which
revealed that most particles were concentrated in the debris
flow head, and the number increased with height. The re-
sponses to the grain impact pressure at the three depths were
not synchronous. The impact frequencies from bottom to top
were 210 ± 50, 287 ± 29 and 226 ± 35 times per second,
and the frequencies for the debris flow head were 490 ± 69,
493 ± 52 and 336 ± 114 times per second. The peak impact
pressure of particles at different flow depths was 40–160 kPa
for the 24 measurements of the surge. It was 3.2 ± 1.5 times
the dynamic pressure of slurry at the bottom, 3.1 ± 0.9 times
for the middle sensor and 3.3 ± 0.9 times for the surface sensor.
Some valuable results were obtained in the miniaturized
flume experiment, but the dynamic and kinematic similarities
with the prototype were hard to achieve; in particular, the im-
pact load of big boulders was difficult to simulate. Therefore,
there are still some limits to the study of the nature of the impact
force of big grains in our experiment.
Acknowledgements—This work has been supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (41030742, 41190084) and Key
Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No.KZZD-EW-05-01).
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