Sliding and damming properties of granular debris with different geometric configurations and grain size distributions

Granular debris plays a significant role in determining damming deposit characteristics. An indepth understanding of how variations in grain size distribution(GSD) and geometric configurations impact the behavior of granular debris during the occurrence of granular debris is essential for precise assessment and effective mitigation of landslide hazards in mountainous terrains. This research aims to investigate the impact of GSD and geometric configurations on sliding and damming properties through laboratory experiments. The geometric configurations were categorized into three categories based on the spatial distribution of maximum volume: located at the front(Type Ⅰ), middle(Type Ⅱ), and rear(Type Ⅲ) of the granular debris. Our experimental findings highlight that the sliding and damming processes primarily depend on the interaction among the geometric configuration, grain size, and GSD in granular debris. Different sliding and damming mechanisms across various geometric configurations induce variability in motion parameters and deposition patterns. For Type Ⅰ configurations, the front debris functions as the critical and primary driving component, with energy dissipation primarily occurring through inter-grain interactions. In contrast, Type Ⅱ configurations feature the middle debris as the dominant driving component, experiencing hindrance from the front debris and propulsion from the rear, leading to complex alterations in sliding motion. Here, energy dissipation arises from a combination of inter-grain and grain-substrate interactions. Lastly, in Type Ⅲ configurations, both the middle and rear debris serve as the main driving components, with the rear sliding debris impeded by the front. In this case, energy dissipation predominantly results from grainsubstrate interaction. Moreover, we have quantitatively demonstrated that the inverse grading in damming deposits, where coarse grain moves upward and fine grain moves downward, is primarily caused by grain sorting due to collisions among the grains and between the grain and the base. The impact of grain on the horizontal channel further aids grain sorting and contributes to inverse grading. The proposed classification of three geometric configurations in our study enhances the understanding of damming properties from the view of mechanism, which provides valuable insights for related study about damming granular debris.

An inverse problem to estimate an unknown order of a Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative for a fractional Stokes' first problem for a heated generalized second grade fluid

In this paper,we propose a numerical method to estimate the unknown order of a Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative for a fractional Stokes＇ first problem for a heated generalized second grade fluid.The implicit numerical method is employed to solve the direct problem.For the inverse problem,we first obtain the fractional sensitivity equation by means of the digamma function,and then we propose an efficient numerical method,that is,the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm based on a fractional derivative,to estimate the unknown order of a Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative.In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed numerical method,two cases in which the measurement values contain random measurement error or not are considered.The computational results demonstrate that the proposed numerical method could efficiently obtain the optimal estimation of the unknown order of a RiemannLiouville fractional derivative for a fractional Stokes＇ first problem for a heated generalized second grade fluid.