Effects of bed longitudinal inflexion and sediment porosity on basal entrainment mechanism: insights from laboratory debris flows

Channel morphology and bed sediment erodibility are two crucial factors that significantly affect debris flow entrainment processes. Current debris flow entrainment models mostly hypothesize the erodible beds are infinite with uniform slopes. In this study, a series of small-scale flume experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of bed longitudinal inflexion and sediment porosity on basal entrainment characteristics. Experimental observations revealed that sediment entrainment is negligible at early stages and accelerates rapidly as several erosion points appear. Continual evolution of flow-bed interfaces changes interactions between debris flows and bed sediments, rendering the interfacial shear action involved into a mixed shear and frontal collisional action. Lower bed sediment porosity will change the spatial arrangement and orientation of particle mixture, strengthen the interlocking and anti-slide forces of adjacent sediment particles, and promote the formation of particle clusters, all of which will increase bed sediment resistance to erosion. By examining the post-experimental bed morphology, the slope-cutting amounts and topographic reliefs are determined to positively correlate with longitudinal transition angles. These high topographic reliefs may indicate the propensity of triangular slab erosion, rather than strip-shaped slab erosion, in non-uniform channels with relatively steep erodible beds. Empirical formulas are obtained that denote the relationships among bed sediment strength, channel curvature radius, and sediment porosity through a multi-parameter regression analysis. This study may aid in clarifying the complex coupling effects of spatial variations in debris flow dynamics as well as sediment erodibility and bed morphology in non-uniform channels with abundant seismic loose material.

Automated summary

Channel morphology and bed sediment erodibility are crucial factors affecting debris flow entrainment processes. Experimental observations show that sediment entrainment accelerates as erosion points appear, and lower bed sediment porosity increases bed sediment resistance to erosion. High topographic reliefs in non-uniform channels may indicate the propensity of triangular slab erosion.