Abstract
We performed an experimental study to investigate the effects of structural strategy for improving the debris brake performance. The stony debris flow was generated by releasing water discharge from a tank that contained gravel material. The efficiency of debris brake, debris accumulation pattern and its position parameters was used to evaluate the performance of the debris brake structure. The influences of debris brake slope, opening size and nonuniformity in deck opening size parameters that have not been studied before were investigated for different debris flow conditions. The results showed that the slope of debris brake was the most important factor on debris brake performance. The suitable slope was found to be a function of the debris flow velocity, and it can increase debris brake efficiency up to 10%. The analysis of the experimental data suggests the optimum opening size ratio (i.e., the ratio of opening size to median diameter of debris) smaller than or equal to one. Experimental data indicated that the nonuniformity in opening size of the debris brake cannot improve the debris brake efficiency.
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Abbreviations
- W f :
-
Flume width
- S f :
-
Flume slope
- W db :
-
Width of debris flow brake
- L db :
-
Length of debris flow brake
- S db :
-
Slope of debris flow brake
- L o :
-
Opening size of the deck of debris flow brake
- L b :
-
Blocking size of the deck of debris flow brake
- L T :
-
Travel length of the debris flow over the debris flow brake
- V d :
-
Sediment volume stopped
- L H(max) :
-
Location of the longest height of sediments accumulated on the structure
- C :
-
Concentration
- C in :
-
The net concentration reached at the beginning of structure
- \(\gamma_{\text{s}}\) :
-
Buoyancy specific weight of sediment
- ρ :
-
Mass density
- μ :
-
Dynamic viscosity
- h :
-
Flow depth
- V :
-
Flow velocity flow
- g :
-
Gravitational acceleration
- ρ s :
-
Mass density of debris
- D 50 :
-
Mean particle diameter
- ω :
-
Falling particle velocity
- W s :
-
Buoyancy weight of the particle
- φ s :
-
Friction angle of gravel
- \(C_{*}\) :
-
Chezy coefficient
- \(v_{*}\) :
-
Shear speed
- \(\tau_{0}\) :
-
Shear stress
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Rezapourian, S., Ahmadi, M.M. & Qaderi, K. Experimental Study of Structural Strategy on Debris Brake Performance. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Civ Eng 45, 389–398 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-020-00461-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-020-00461-2