Output details
15 - General Engineering
University of Edinburgh (joint submission with Heriot-Watt University)
Failure initiation in snow stratifications containing weak layers: Nucleation of whumpfs and slab avalanches
This work was carried out within the EU project “Triggering of instabilities in materials and geosystems” (TRIGS, www.trigs.eu), and represents the first systematic theoretical investigation of failure nucleation in stratified snow containing collapsible weak layers. The theoretical results show that representative snow stability tests can be carried out on flat terrain, thus minimizing risk to the researcher. They were used by experimentalists at the world leading Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanches (SLF, Switzerland, Alec Van Herwijnen, vanherwijnen@slf.ch) to develop new snow testing protocols (e.g. DoI:10.1029/2009JF001515) and risk scenarios (e.g. http://www.issw.ch/ISSW09_Proceedings.pdf, pp. 276ff.).
