Mobilisation of friction in unstationary flows down a model topography

The frictional behaviour of a series of numerical 2D granular mass flows down a model topography is analysed. Effective friction coefficients estimated from final deposits are compared with data from documented natural geophysical flows, and show a consistent behaviour as far as run-out distances are concerned. The latter is used to estimate effective friction coefficients which capture well the frictional behaviour derived from the computation of micro-mechanical stress tensors near the gravity centre. Distinguishing between the different parts of the mass while spreading, we show that the downstream part of the flow exhibits a much larger friction than the core and the tail. A dependence between friction and flow volume is however observed in each region.